BT  97  .W3  1918 
Warfield,  Benjamin 

Breckinridge,  1851-1921 
Counterfeit  miracles 


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COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 


V 


w*  Vl  rnww^ 


COUNTERFEIT 


i  f;  iq  o/i 


MIRACLES 


. 


BY 


BENJAMIN  B.  WARFIELD 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1918 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  April,  1918 


THIS  VOLUME  CONTAINS 

THE   THOMAS    SMYTH    LECTURES    FOR    1917-1918 

DELIVERED  AT  THE 

COLUMBIA   THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY 

COLUMBIA,    SOUTH  CAROLINA 
OCTOBER  4-IO,    igi  7 

IT  IS  DEDICATED   TO 

THE    BOARD   OF    DIRECTORS    AND   THE    FACULTY 
OF    COLUMBIA   THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY 

IN  APPRECIATION  OF 

THEIR  INVITATION   TO  DELD7ER   THE   LECTURES 

AND  IN  PLEASANT  RECOLLECTION  OF 

THEIR  MANY  COURTESIES 


CONTENTS 

The  Cessation  of  the  Charismata i 

Patristic  and  Mediaeval  Marvels 33 

Roman  Catholic  Miracles 71 

Irvingite  Gifts 125 

Faith-Healing        155 

Mind-Cure 197 

Notes.     [Referred  to  in  the  text  by  superior  nu- 
merals]          231 


THE  CESSATION  OF  THE  CHARISMATA 


THE  CESSATION  OF  THE  CHARISMATA 

When  our  Lord  came  down  to  earth  He  drew  heaven 
with  Him.  The  signs  which  accompanied  His  ministry 
were  but  the  trailing  clouds  of  glory  which  He  brought 
from  heaven,  which  is  His  home.  The  number  of  the  mir- 
acles which  He  wrought  may  easily  be  underrated.  It  has 
been  said  that  in  effect  He  banished  disease  and  death  from 
Palestine  for  the  three  years  of  His  ministry.  If  this  is 
exaggeration  it  is  pardonable  exaggeration.  Wherever  He 
went,  He  brought  a  blessing: 

One  hem  but  of  the  garment  that  He  wore 
Could  medicine  whole  countries  of  their  pain; 
One  touch  of  that  pale  hand  could  life  restore. 

We  ordinarily  greatly  underestimate  His  beneficent  ac- 
tivity as  He  went  about,  as  Luke  says,  doing  good.1  * 

His  own  divine  power  by  which  He  began  to  found  His 
church  He  continued  in  the  Apostles  whom  He  had  chosen 
to  complete  this  great  work.  They  transmitted  it  in  turn, 
as  part  of  their  own  miracle-working  and  the  crowning  sign 
of  their  divine  commission,  to  others,  in  the  form  of  what 
the  New  Testament  calls  spiritual  gifts2  in  the  sense  of 
extraordinary  capacities  produced  in  the  early  Christian 
communities  by  direct  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  number  and  variety  of  these  spiritual  gifts  were 
considerable.  Even  Paul's  enumerations,  the  fullest  of 
which  occurs  in  the  twelfth  chapter  of  I  Corinthians,  can 
hardly  be  read  as  exhaustive  scientific  catalogues.  The 
name  which  is  commonly  applied  to  them3  is  broad  enough 
to  embrace  what  may  be  called  both  the  ordinary  and  the 

*  For  all  references  see  corresponding  numbers  at  the  end  of  the  volume. 

3 


4  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

specifically  extraordinary  gifts  of  the  Spirit;  both  those, 
that  is,  which  were  distinctively  gracious,  and  those  which 
were  distinctly  miraculous.  In  fact,  in  the  classical  pas- 
sage which  treats  of  them  (I  Cor.  12-14)  both  classes  are 
brought  together  under  this  name.  The  non-miraculous, 
gracious  gifts  are,  indeed,  in  this  passage  given  the  prefer- 
ence and  called  "  the  greatest  gifts";  and  the  search  after 
them  is  represented  as  "the  more  excellent  way";  the 
longing  for  the  highest  of  them — faith,  hope,  and  love — 
being  the  most  excellent  way  of  all.  Among  the  miraculous 
gifts  themselves,  a  like  distinction  is  made  in  favor  of 
"prophecy"  (that  is,  the  gift  of  exhortation  and  teaching), 
and,  in  general,  in  favor  of  those  by  which  the  body  of 
Christ  is  edified. 

The  diffusion  of  these  miraculous  gifts  is,  perhaps,  quite 
generally  underestimated.  One  of  the  valuable  features  of 
the  passage,  I  Cor.  12-14,  consists  in  the  picture  given  in 
it  of  Christian  worship  in  the  Apostolic  age  (14  :  26  ff.).4 
"What  is  it,  then,  brethren?"  the  Apostle  asks.  "When 
ye  come  together,  each  one  hath  a  psalm,  hath  a  teaching, 
hath  a  revelation,  hath  a  tongue,  hath  an  interpretation. 
Let  all  things  be  done  unto  edifying.  If  any  man  speaketh 
in  a  tongue,  let  it  be  by  two  or  at  the  most  three,  and  that 
in  turn;  and  let  one  interpret:  but  if  there  be  no  inter- 
preter, let  him  keep  silence  in  the  church;  and  let  him 
speak  to  himself,  and  to  God.  And  let  the  prophets  speak 
by  two  or  three,  and  let  the  others  discern.  But  if  a  revela- 
tion be  made  to  another  sitting  by,  let  the  first  keep  silence. 
For  ye  all  can  prophesy  one  by  one,  that  all  may  learn,  and 
all  may  be  comforted ;  and  the  spirits  of  the  prophets  are 
subject  to  the  prophets ;  for  God  is  not  a  God  of  confusion, 
but  of  peace."  This,  it  is  to  be  observed,  was  the  ordinary 
church  worship  at  Corinth  in  the  Apostles'  day.  It  is 
analogous  in  form  to  the  freedom  of  our  modern  prayer- 
meeting  services.  What  chiefly  distinguishes  it  from  them 
is  that  those  who  took  part  in  it  might  often  have  a  mirac- 


THE   PRIMITIVE   CHARISMATA  5 

ulous  gift  to  exercise,  "a  revelation,  a  tongue,  an  inter- 
pretation," as  well  as  "a  psalm  or  a  teaching."  There  is 
no  reason  to  believe  that  the  infant  congregation  at  Cor- 
inth was  singular  in  this.  The  Apostle  does  not  write  as 
if  he  were  describing  a  marvellous  state  of  affairs  peculiar 
to  that  church.  He  even  makes  the  transition  to  the  next 
item  of  his  advice  in  the  significant  words,  "as  in  all  the 
churches  of  the  saints."  And  the  hints  in  the  rest  of  his 
letters  and  in  the  Book  of  Acts  require  us,  accordingly,  to 
look  upon  this  beautiful  picture  of  Christian  worship  as 
one  which  would  be  true  to  life  for  any  of  the  numerous 
congregations  planted  by  the  Apostles  in  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  world  visited  and  preached  to  by  them. 

The  argument  may  be  extended  to  those  items  of  the 
fuller  list,  given  in  I  Cor.  12,  which  found  less  occasion  for 
their  exhibition  in  the  formal  meetings  for  worship,  but 
belonged  more  to  life  outside  the  meeting-room.  That 
enumeration  includes  among  the  extraordinary  items,  you 
will  remember,  gifts  of  healings,  workings  of  miracles, 
prophecy,  discernings  of  spirits,  kinds  of  tongues,  the  inter- 
pretation of  tongues — all  of  which,  appropriate  to  the  wor- 
shipping assembly,  are  repeated  in  I  Cor.  14  :  26  ff.  We 
are  justified  in  considering  it  characteristic  of  the  Apostolic 
churches  that  such  miraculous  gifts  should  be  displayed  in 
them.  The  exception  would  be,  not  a  church  with,  but  a 
church  without,  such  gifts.  Everywhere,  the  Apostolic 
Church  was  marked  out  as  itself  a  gift  from  God,  by  show- 
ing forth  the  possession  of  the  Spirit  in  appropriate  works 
of  the  Spirit — miracles  of  healing  and  miracles  of  power, 
miracles  of  knowledge,  whether  in  the  form  of  prophecy 
or  of  the  discerning  of  spirits,  miracles  of  speech,  whether 
of  the  gift  of  tongues  or  of  their  interpretation.  The 
Apostolic  Church  was  characteristically  a  miracle-working 
church.6 

How  long  did  this  state  of  things  continue?  It  was 
the  characterizing  peculiarity  of  specifically  the  Apostolic 


6  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

Church,  and  it  belonged  therefore  exclusively  to  the  Apos- 
tolic age — although  no  doubt  this  designation  may  be 
taken  with  some  latitude.  These  gifts  were  not  the  pos- 
session of  the  primitive  Christian  as  such;6  nor  for  that 
matter  of  the  Apostolic  Church  or  the  Apostolic  age  for 
themselves;  they  were  distinctively  the  authentication  of 
the  Apostles.  They  were  part  of  the  credentials  of  the 
Apostles  as  the  authoritative  agents  of  God  in  founding 
the  church.  Their  function  thus  confined  them  to  distinc- 
tively the  Apostolic  Church,  and  they  necessarily  passed 
away  with  it.7  Of  this  we  may  make  sure  on  the  ground 
both  of  principle  and  of  fact ;  that  is  to  say  both  under  the 
guidance  of  the  New  Testament  teaching  as  to  their  origin 
and  nature,  and  on  the  credit  of  the  testimony  of  later  ages 
as  to  their  cessation.  But  I  shall  not  stop  at  this  point 
to  adduce  the  proof  of  this.  It  will  be  sufficiently  intimated 
in  the  criticism  which  I  purpose  to  make  of  certain  opposing 
opinions  which  have  been  current  among  students  of  the 
subject.  My  design  is  to  state  and  examine  the  chief  views 
which  have  been  held  favorable  to  the  continuance  of  the 
charismata  beyond  the  Apostolic  age.  In  the  process  of 
this  examination  occasion  will  offer  for  noting  whatever 
is  needful  to  convince  us  that  the  possession  of  the  charis- 
mata was  confined  to  the  Apostolic  age. 

The  theologians  of  the  post-Reformation  era,  a  very 
clear-headed  body  of  men,  taught  with  great  distinctness 
that  the  charismata  ceased  with  the  Apostolic  age.  But  this 
teaching  gradually  gave  way,  pretty  generally  throughout 
the  Protestant  churches,  but  especially  in  England,  to  the 
view  that  they  continued  for  a  while  in  the  post-Apostolic 
period,  and  only  slowly  died  out  like  a  light  fading  by  in- 
creasing distance  from  its  source.8  The  period  most  com- 
monly set  for  their  continuance  is  three  centuries ;  the  date 
of  their  cessation  is  ordinarily  said  to  have  been  about  the 
time  of  Constantine.  This,  as  early  as  the  opening  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  had  become  the  leading  opinion,  at 


THEIR   DISAPPEARANCE  7 

least  among  theologians  of  the  Anglican  school,  as  Conyers 
Middleton,  writing  in  the  middle  of  that  century,  advises 
us.  "The  most  prevailing  opinion,"  he  says  in  his  Intro- 
ductory Discourse  to  a  famous  book  to  be  more  fully  de- 
scribed by  and  by,  "is  that  they  subsisted  through  the  first 
three  centuries,  and  then  ceased  in  the  beginning  of  the 
fourth,  or  as  soon  as  Christianity  came  to  be  established 
by  the  civil  power.  This,  I  say,  seems  to  be  the  most  pre- 
vailing notion  at  this  day  among  the  generality  of  the 
Protestants,  who  think  it  reasonable  to  imagine  that  mir- 
acles should  then  cease,  when  the  end  of  them  was  obtained 
and  the  church  no  longer  in  want  of  them ;  being  now  de- 
livered from,  all  danger,  and  secure  of  success,  under  the 
protection  of  the  greatest  power  on  earth."  9 

Middleton  supports  this  statement  with  instances  which 
bring  out  so  clearly  the  essential  elements  of  the  opinion 
that  they  may  profitably  be  quoted  here.  Archbishop  John 
Tillotson  represents  "that  on  the  first  planting  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion  in  the  world,  God  was  pleased  to  accompany 
it  with  a  miraculous  power;  but  after  it  was  planted,  that 
power  ceased,  and  God  left  it  to  be  maintained  by  ordi- 
nary ways."  So,  Nathaniel  Marshall  wrote,  "that  there 
are  successive  evidences  of  them,  which  speak  full  and 
home  to  this  point,  from  the  beginning  down  to  the  age  of 
Constantine,  in  whose  time,  when  Christianity  had  ac- 
quired the  support  of  human  powers,  those  extraordinary 
assistances  were  discontinued."  Others,  sharing  the  same 
general  point  of  view,  would  postpone  a  little  the  date  of 
entire  cessation.  Thus  the  elder  Henry  Dodwell  supposes 
true  miracles  to  have  generally  ceased  with  the  conversion 
of  the  Roman  Empire,  yet  admits  some  special  miracles, 
which  seem  to  him  to  be  exceptionally  well  attested,  up 
to  the  close  of  the  fourth  century.  Daniel  Waterland,  in 
the  body  of  his  treatise  on  the  Trinity,  speaks  of  miracles 
as  continuing  through  the  first  three  centuries  at  least,  and 
in  the  Addenda  extends  this  through  the  fourth.    John 


8  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

Chapman's  mode  of  statement  is  "  that  though  the  estab- 
lishment of  Christianity  by  the  civil  power  abated  the  ne- 
cessity of  miracles,  and  occasioned  a  visible  decrease  of 
them,  yet,  after  that  revolution,  there  were  instances  of 
them  still,  as  public,  as  clear,  as  well-attested  as  any  in  the 
earlier  ages."  He  extends  these  instances  not  only  through 
the  fourth  century  but  also  through  the  fifth— which,  he 
says,  "had  also  its  portion,  though  smaller  than  the  fourth." 
William  Whiston,  looking  upon  the  charismata  less  as  the 
divine  means  of  extending  the  church  than  as  the  signs  of 
the  divine  favor  on  the  church  in  its  pure  beginnings,  sets 
the  date  of  their  cessation  at  A.  D.  381,  which  marks  the 
triumph  of  Athanasianism;  that  being  to  him,  as  an  Arian, 
the  final  victory  of  error  in  the  church— which  naturally 
put  a  stop  to  such  manifestations  of  God's  favor.  It  is  a 
similar  idea  from  his  own  point  of  view  which  is  given  ex- 
pression by  John  Wesley  in  one  of  his  not  always  consistent 
declarations  on  the  subject.  He  supposes  that  miracles 
stopped  when  the  empire  became  Christian,  because  then, 
"a  general  corruption  both  of  faith  and  morals  infected  the 
church— which  by  that  revolution,  as  St.  Jerome  says,  lost 
as  much  of  its  virtue  as  it  had  gained  of  wealth  and 
power."  10  These  slight  extensions  of  the  time  during 
which  the  miracles  are  supposed  to  persist,  do  not  essen- 
tially alter  the  general  view,  though  they  have  their  sig- 
nificance— a  very  important  significance  which  Middleton 
was  not  slow  to  perceive,  and  to  which  we  shall  revert 
later. 

The  general  view  itself  has  lost  none  of  its  popularity 
with  the  lapse  of  time.  It  became  more,  rather  than  less, 
wide-spread  with  the  passage  of  the  eighteenth  into  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  it  remains  very  usual  still.  I  need 
not  occupy  your  time  with  the  citation  of  numerous  more 
recent  expressions  of  it.  It  may  suffice  to  adduce  so  pop- 
ular a  historian  as  Gerhard  Uhlhorn  who,  in  his  useful  book 
on  The  Conflict  of  Christianity  with  Heathenism,11  declares 


THE  CURRENT  THEORY  9 

explicitly  that  "witnesses  who  are  above  suspicion  leave 
no  room  for  doubt  that  the  miraculous  powers  of  the  Apos- 
tolic age  continued  to  operate  at  least  into  the  third  cen- 
tury." A  somewhat  special  turn  is  given  to  the  same  gen- 
eral idea  by  another  historian  of  the  highest  standing — 
Bishop  Mandel  Creighton.  "The  Apostles,"  he  tells  us,12 
"were  endowed  with  extraordinary  powers,  necessary  for 
the  establishment  of  the  church,  but  not  necessary  for  its 
permanent  maintenance.  These  powers  were  exercised  for 
healing  the  sick  and  for  conveying  special  gifts  of  the  Holy 
Spirit;  sometimes,  but  rarely,  they  were  used  for  punish- 
ment. .  .  .  These  special  powers  were  committed  to  the 
church  as  a  means  of  teaching  it  the  abiding  presence  of 
God.  They  were  withdrawn  when  they  had  served  their 
purpose  of  indicating  the  duties  to  be  permanently  per- 
formed. To  'gifts  of  tongues'  succeeded  orderly  human 
teaching;  to  'gifts  of  healing'  succeeded  healing  by  edu- 
cated human  skill ;  to  supernatural  punishment  succeeded 
discipline  by  orderly  human  agency." 

This,  then,  is  the  theory:  that,  miracles  having  been 
given  for  the  purpose  of  founding  the  church,  they  con- 
tinued so  long  as  they  were  needed  for  that  purpose ;  grow- 
ing gradually  fewer  as  they  were  less  needed,  and  ceasing 
altogether  when  the  church  having,  so  to  speak,  been  firmly 
put  upon  its  feet,  was  able  to  stand  on  its  own  legs.  There 
is  much  that  is  attractive  in  this  theory  and  much  that  is 
plausible:  so  much  that  is  both  attractive  and  plausible 
that  it  has  won  the  suffrages  of  these  historians  and  scholars 
though  it  contradicts  the  whole  drift  of  the  evidence  of  the 
facts,  and  the  entire  weight  of  probability  as  well.  For  it 
is  only  simple  truth  to  say  that  both  the  ascertained  facts 
and  the  precedent  presumptions  array  themselves  in  oppo- 
sition to  this  construction  of  the  history  of  the  charismata 
in  the  church. 

The  facts  are  not  in  accordance  with  it.  The  view  re- 
quires us  to  believe  that  the  rich  manifestations  of  spiritual 


10  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

gifts  present  in  the  Apostolic  Church,  gradually  grew  less 
through  the  succeeding  centuries  until  they  finally  dwin- 
dled away  by  the  end  of  the  third  century  or  a  little  later. 
Whereas  the  direct  evidence  for  miracle-working  in  the 
church  is  actually  of  precisely  the  contrary  tenor.  There 
is  little  or  no  evidence  at  all  for  miracle-working  during  the 
first  fifty  years  of  the  post- Apostolic  church ;  it  is  slight  and 
unimportant  for  the  next  fifty  years ;  it  grows  more  abun- 
dant during  the  next  century  (the  third) ;  and  it  becomes 
abundant  and  precise  only  in  the  fourth  century,  to  in- 
crease still  further  in  the  fifth  and  beyond.  Thus,  if  the 
evidence  is  worth  anything  at  all,  instead  of  a  regularly 
progressing  decrease,  there  was  a  steadily  growing  increase 
of  miracle-working  from  the  beginning  on.  This  is  doubt- 
less the  meaning  of  the  inability  of  certain  of  the  scholars 
whom  we  have  quoted,  after  having  allowed  that  the  Apos- 
tolic miracles  continued  through  the  first  three  centuries, 
to  stop  there;  there  is  a  much  greater  abundance  and  pre- 
cision of  evidence,  such  as  it  is,  for  miracles  in  the  fourth 
and  the  succeeding  centuries,  than  for  the  preceding  ones. 
The  matter  is  of  sufficient  interest  to  warrant  the  state- 
ment of  the  facts  as  to  the  evidence  somewhat  more  in 
detail.  The  writings  of  the  so-called  Apostolic  Fathers 
contain  no  clear  and  certain  allusions  to  miracle-working 
or  to  the  exercise  of  the  charismatic  gifts,  contemporane- 
ously with  themselves.13  These  writers  inculcate  the  ele- 
ments of  Christian  living  in  a  spirit  so  simple  and  sober  as 
to  be  worthy  of  their  place  as  the  immediate  followers  of 
the  Apostles.  Their  anxiety  with  reference  to  themselves 
seems  to  be  lest  they  should  be  esteemed  overmuch  and 
confounded  in  their  pretensions  with  the  Apostles,  rather 
than  to  press  claims  to  station,  dignity,  or  powers  similar 
to  theirs.14  So  characteristic  is  this  sobriety  of  attitude  of 
their  age,  that  the  occurrence  of  accounts  of  miracles  in  the 
letter  of  the  church  of  Smyrna  narrating  the  story  of  the 
martyrdom  of  Polycarp  is  a  recognized  difficulty  in  the  way 


INDEFINITE  TESTIMONY  11 

of  admitting  the  genuineness  of  that  letter.15  Polycarp 
was  martyred  in  155  A.  D.  Already  by  that  date,  we  meet 
with  the  beginnings  of  general  assertions  of  the  presence  of 
miraculous  powers  in  the  church.  These  occur  in  some 
passages  of  the  writings  of  Justin  Martyr.  The  exact  na- 
ture of  Justin's  testimony  is  summed  up  by  Bishop  John 
Kaye  as  follows:16  "Living  so  nearly  as  Justin  did  to  the 
Apostolic  age,  it  will  naturally  be  asked  whether,  among 
other  causes  of  the  diffusion  of  Christianity,  he  specifies 
the  exercise  of  miraculous  powers  by  the  Christians.  He 
says  in  general  terms  that  such  powers  subsisted  in  the 
church  {Dial.,  pp.  254  ff.) — that  Christians  were  endowed 
with  the  gift  of  prophecy  {Dial.,  p.  308  B,  see  also  p.  315  B) 
— and  in  an  enumeration  of  supernatural  gifts  conferred 
on  Christians,  he  mentions  that  of  healing  {Dial.,  p.  258  A). 
We  have  seen  also,  in  a  former  chapter,  that  he  ascribes 
to  Christians  the  power  of  exorcising  demons  (chap.  viii). 
But  he  produces  no  particular  instance  of  an  exercise  of 
miraculous  power,  and  'therefore  affords  us  no  opportunity 
of  applying  those  tests  by  which  the  credibility  of  miracles 
must  be  tried."  And  then  the  bishop  adds,  by  way  of 
quickening  our  sense  of  the  meaning  of  these  facts:  "Had 
it  only  been  generally  stated  by  the  Evangelists  that  Christ 
performed  miracles,  and  had  no  particular  miracle  been  re- 
corded, how  much  less  satisfactory  would  the  Gospel  nar- 
ratives have  appeared!  how  greatly  their  evidence  in  sup- 
port of  our  Saviour's  divine  mission  been  diminished!" 

This  beginning  of  testimony  is  followed  up  to  precisely 
the  same  effect  by  Irenaeus,  except  that  Irenaeus  speaks 
somewhat  more  explicitly,  and  adds  a  mention  of  two  new 
classes  of  miracles — those  of  speaking  with  tongues  and  of 
raising  the  dead,  to  both  of  which  varieties  he  is  the  sole 
witness  during  these  centuries,  and  of  the  latter  of  which 
at  least  he  manages  so  to  speak  as  to  suggest  that  he  is 
not  testifying  to  anything  he  had  himself  witnessed.17 
Irenasus's  contemporary,  indeed,  Theophilus  of  Antioch, 


12  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

while,  like  Irenaeus,  speaking  of  the  exorcism  of  demons  as 
a  standing  Christian  miracle,  when  challenged  by  Autolycus 
to  produce  but  one  dead  man  who  had  been  raised  to  life, 
discovers  by  his  reply  that  there  was  none  to  produce; 
and  "no  instance  of  this  miracle  was  ever  produced  in  the 
first  three  centuries."  18    For  the  rest,  we  say,  Irenaeus's 
witness  is  wholly  similar  to  Justin's.    He  speaks  altogether 
generally,  adducing  no  specific  cases,  but  ascribing  miracle- 
working  to  "all  who  were  truly  disciples  of  Jesus,"  each 
according  to  the  gift  he  had  received,  and  enumerating 
especially  gifts  of  exorcism,  prediction,  healing,  raising  the 
dead,  speaking  with  tongues,  insight  into  secrets,  and  ex- 
pounding the  Scriptures  (Cont.  Har.,  II,  lvi,  lvii;  V,  vi).19 
Tertullian  in  like  manner  speaks  of  exorcisms,  and  adduces 
one  case  of  a  prophetically  gifted  woman  (Apol.,  xxviii; 
De  Anima,  ix) ;  and  Minucius  Felix  speaks  of  exorcism 
{Oct.,  xxvi).20     Origen  professes  to  have  been  an  eye-wit- 
ness of  many  instances  of  exorcism,  healing,  and  prophecy, 
although  he  refuses  to  record  the' details  lest  he  should 
rouse  the  laughter  of  the  unbeliever  {Cont.  Cels.,  I,  ii;  III, 
xxiv;  VII,  iv,  lxvii).     Cyprian  speaks  of  gifts  of  visions  and 
exorcisms.     And  so  we  pass  on  to  the  fourth  century  in  an 
ever-increasing  stream,  but  without  a  single  writer  having 
claimed  himself  to  have  wrought  a  miracle  of  any  kind  or 
having  ascribed  miracle-working  to  any  known  name  in  the 
church,  and  without  a  single  instance  having  been  recorded 
in  detail.     The  contrast  of  this  with  the  testimony  of  the 
fourth  century  is  very  great.    There  we  have  the  greatest 
writers  recording  instances  witnessed  by  themselves  with 
the  greatest  circumstantiality.     The  miracles  of  the  first 
three  centuries,  however,  if  accepted  at  all,  must  be  ac- 
cepted on  the  general  assertion  that  such  things  occurred — 
a  general  assertion  which  itself  is  wholly  lacking  until  the 
middle  of  the  second  century  and  which,  when  it  does 
appear,  concerns  chiefly  prophecy  and  healings,  including 
especially  exorcisms,21  which  we  can  scarcely  be  wrong  in 


RESUSCITATIONS  OF  THE  DEAD  13 

supposing  precisely  the  classes  of  marvels  with  respect  to 
which  excitement  most  easily  blinds  the  judgment  and  in- 
sufficiently grounded  rumors  most  readily  grow  up.22 

We  are  no  doubt  startled  to  find  Irenaeus,  in  the  midst  of 
delivering  what  is  apparently  merely  a  conventional  testi- 
mony to  the  occurrence  of  these  minor  things,  suddenly 
adding  his  witness  to  the  occurrence  also  of  the  tremendous 
miracle  of  raising  the  dead.  The  importance  of  this  phe- 
nomenon may  be  thought  to  require  that  we  should  give 
a  little  closer  scrutiny  to  it,  and  this  the  more  because  of 
the  mocking  comment  which  Gibbon  has  founded  on  it. 
"But  the  miraculous  cure  of  diseases  of  the  most  inveterate 
or  even  preternatural  kind,"  says  he,23  "can  no  longer  occa- 
sion any  surprise  when  we  recollect  that  in  the  days  of 
Irenaeus,  about  the  end  of  the  second  century,  the  resur- 
rection of  the  dead  was  very  far  from  being  esteemed  an 
uncommon  event;  that  the  miracle  was  frequently  per- 
formed on  necessary  occasions,  by  great  fasting  and  the 
joint  supplication  of  the  church  of  the  place ;  and  that  the 
persons  thus  restored  by  their  prayers  had  lived  afterward 
among  them  many  years.  At  such  a  period,  when  faith 
could  boast  of  so  many  wonderful  victories  over  death,  it 
seems  difficult  to  account  for  the  scepticism  of  those  phi- 
losophers who  still  rejected  and  derided  the  doctrine  of  the 
resurrection.  A  noble  Grecian  had  rested  on  this  important 
ground  the  whole  controversy,  and  promised  Theophilus, 
bishop  of  Antioch,  that,  if  he  could  be  gratified  by  the 
sight  of  a  single  person  who  had  been  actually  raised  from 
the  dead,  he  would  immediately  embrace  the  Christian 
religion.  It  is  somewhat  remarkable  that  the  prelate  of 
the  first  Eastern  church,  however  anxious  for  the  conver- 
sion of  his  friend,  thought  proper  to  decline  this  fair  and 
reasonable  challenge." 

The  true  character  of  Gibbon's  satirical  remarks  is  al- 
ready apparent  from  the  circumstances  to  which  we  have 
already  alluded,  that  Irenaeus  alone  of  all  the  writers  of  this 


14  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

period  speaks  of  raisings  of  the  dead  at  all,  and  that  he 
speaks  of  them  after  a  fashion  which  suggests  that  he  has 
in  mind  not  contemporary  but  past  instances — doubtless 
those  recorded  in  the  narratives  of  the  New  Testament.24 
Eusebius  does  no  doubt  narrate  what  he  calls  "a  wonder- 
ful story,"  told  by  Papias  on  the  authority  of  the  daugh- 
ters of  Philip,  whom  Papias  knew.  "For,"  says  Eusebius, 
"he  relates  that  in  his  time,"  that  is  to  say  in  Philip's  time, 
"one  rose  from  the  dead."  25  This  resuscitation,  however, 
it  will  be  observed,  belongs  to  the  Apostolic,  not  the  post- 
Apostolic  times,  and  it  is  so  spoken  of  as  to  suggest  that  it 
was  thought  very  wonderful  both  by  Eusebius  and  by  Pa- 
pias. It  is  very  clear  that  Eusebius  was  not  familiar  with 
raisings  from  the  dead  in  his  own  day,  and  also  that  Papias 
was  not  familiar  with  them  in  his  day;2b  and  it  is  equally 
clear  that  Eusebius  did  not  know  of  numerous  instances 
of  such  a  transaction  having  been  recorded  as  occurring  in 
the  course  of  the  early  history  of  the  church,  which  history 
he  was  in  the  act  of  transcribing.27  One  would  think  that 
this  would  carry  with  it  the  implication  that  Eusebius  did 
not  understand  Irenaeus  to  assert  their  frequent,  or  even 
occasional,  or  even  singular,  occurrence  in  his  time.  Never- 
theless when  he  comes  to  cite  Irenaeus's  witness  to  the  con- 
tinuance "to  his  time  in  some  of  the  churches" — so  he 
cautiously  expresses  himself — "of  manifestations  of  divine 
and  miraculous  power,"  he  quotes  his  words  here  after  a 
fashion  which  seems  to  imply  that  he  understood  him  to 
testify  to  the  occurrence  in  his  own  time  of  raisings  from 
the  dead.28 

It  is  an  understatement  to  say  that  Irenaeus's  contem- 
poraries were  unaware  that  the  dead  were  being  raised  in 
their  day.  What  they  say  amounts  to  testimony  that  they 
were  not  being  raised.  This  is  true  not  only  of  the  manner 
in  which  Theophilus  of  Antioch  parries  the  demands  of 
Autolycus,29  but  equally  of  the  manner  in  which  Tertullian 
reverts  to  the  matter.     He  is  engaged  specifically  in  con- 


IREN^US'S  TESTIMONY  15 

trasting  the  Apostles  with  their  "companions,"  that  is,  their 
immediate  successors  in  the  church,  with  a  view  to  rebuk- 
ing the  deference  which  was  being  paid  to  the  Shepherd  of 
Hermas.  Among  the  contrasts  which  obtained  between 
them,  he  says  that  the  Apostles  possessed  spiritual  powers 
peculiar  to  themselves,  that  is  to  say,  not  shared  by  their 
successors.  He  illustrates  this,  among  other  things,  by 
declaring,  "For  they  raised  the  dead."30  It  would  be 
strange  indeed  if  Irenasus  has  nevertheless  represented 
raisings  from  the  dead  to  have  been  a  common  occurrence 
precisely  in  the  church  of  Theophilus  and  Tertullian. 

A  scrutiny  of  his  language  makes  it  plain  enough  that  he 
has  not  done  so.  In  the  passages  cited  31  Irenaeus  is  con- 
trasting the  miracles  performed  by  Christians  with  the  poor 
magical  wonders  to  which  alone  the  heretics  he  is  engaged 
in  refuting  can  appeal.  In  doing  this  he  has  in  mind  the 
whole  miraculous  attestation  of  Christianity,  and  not 
merely  the  particular  miracles  which  could  be  witnessed  in 
his  own  day.  If  we  will  read  him  carefully  we  shall  ob- 
serve that,  as  he  runs  along  in  his  enumeration  of  the  Chris- 
tian marvels,  "there  is  a  sudden  and  unexpected  change  of 
tense  when  he  begins  to  speak  of  this  greatest  of  miracles" 
— raising  from  the  dead.  "Healing,  exorcism,  and  proph- 
ecy— these  he  asserts  are  matters  of  present  experience; 
but  he  never  says  that  of  resurrection  from  the  dead.  'It 
often  happened,'  i.e.,  in  the  past;  'they  were  raised  up/ 
i.  e.,  again  at  some  time  gone  by.  The  use  of  the  past 
tense  here,  and  here  alone,  implies,  we  may  say,  that 
Irenasus  had  not  witnessed  an  example  with  his  own  eyes, 
or  at  least  that  such  occurrences  were  not  usual  when  he 
was  writing.  So,  when  he  states,  'Even  the  dead  were 
raised  and  abode  with  us  many  years ' — it  does  not  appear 
that  he  means  anything  more  than  this — that  such  events 
happened  within  living  memory."  In  these  last  remarks 
we  have  been  quoting  J.  H.  Bernard,  and  we  find  ourselves 
fully  in  accord  with  his  conclusion.32     "The  inference  from 


16  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

the  whole  passage,"  says  he,  "is,  we  believe,  that  these 
major  miracles  no  longer  happened — an  inference  which  is 
corroborated  by  all  the  testimony  we  have  got." 

When  we  come  to  think  of  it,  it  is  rather  surprising  that 
the  Christians  had  no  raisings  from  the  dead  to  point  to 
through  all  these  years.  The  fact  is  striking  testimony 
to  the  marked  sobriety  of  their  spirit.  The  heathen  had 
them  in  plenty.33  In  an  age  so  innocent  of  real  medical 
knowledge,  and  filled  to  the  brim  and  overflowing  with 
superstition,  apparent  death  and  resuscitation  were  fre- 
quent, and  they  played  a  role  of  importance  in  the  Greek 
prophet  and  philosopher  legends  of  the  time.34  A  famous 
instance  occurs  in  Philostratus's  Life  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana, 
which,  from  a  certain  resemblance  between  it  and  the  nar- 
rative of  the  raising  of  the  widow  of  Nain's  son,  used  to  be 
thought  an  imitation  of  that  passage.35  Things  are  better 
understood  now,  and  it  is  universally  recognized  that  we 
have  in  this  beautiful  story  neither  an  imitation  of  the  New 
Testament  nor  a  polemic  against  it,  but  a  simple  product 
of  the  aretalogy  of  the  day.  Otto  Weinreich  has  brought 
together  the  cases  of  raising  from  the  dead  which  occur  in 
this  literature,  in  the  first  excursus  to  his  treatise  on  Ancient 
Miracles  of  Healing.7,6  He  thus  enables  us  to  observe  at  a 
glance  the  large  place  they  take  in  it.  It  is  noticeable  that 
they  were  not  esteemed  a  very  great  thing.  In  the  instance 
just  alluded  to,  the  introduction  of  a  resuscitation  into 
Philostratus's  Life  of  Apollonius  is  accompanied  by  an  in- 
timation that  it  may  possibly  be  susceptible  of  a  natural  ex- 
planation. Philostratus  does  not  desire  to  make  the  glory 
of  his  hero  depend  on  a  thing  which  even  a  common  magi- 
cian could  do,  but  rather  rests  it  on  those  greater  miracles 
which  intimate  the  divine  nature  of  the  man.37 

You  probably  would  like  to  have  the  account  which 
Philostratus  gives  of  this  miracle  before  you.  "Here  too," 
he  writes,38  "is  a  miracle  which  Apollonius  worked:  A  girl 
had  died  just  in  the  hour  of  her  marriage,  and  the  bride- 


HEATHEN   RESUSCITATIONS  17 

groom  was  following  her  bier  lamenting,  as  was  natural, 
his  marriage  left  unfulfilled;  and  the  whole  of  Rome  was 
mourning  with  him,  for  the  maiden  belonged  to  a  consular 
family.  Apollonius,  then,  witnessing  their  grief,  said:  'Put 
down  the  bier,  for  I  will  stay  the  tears  that  you  are  shed- 
ding for  this  maiden.'  And  withal  he  asked  what  was  her 
name.  The  crowd  accordingly  thought  he  was  about  to 
deliver  such  an  oration  as  is  commonly  delivered  as  much 
to  grace  the  funeral  as  to  stir  up  lamentation ;  but  he  did 
nothing  of  the  kind,  but  merely  touching  her  and  whisper- 
ing in  secret  some  spell  over  her,  at  once  woke  up  the 
maiden  from  her  seeming  death;  and  the  girl  spoke  out 
loud  and  returned  to  her  father's  house;  sjust  as  Alkestis 
did  when  she  was  brought  back  to  life  by  Herakles.  And 
the  relations  of  the  maiden  wanted  to  present  him  with  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  sesterces,  but  he  said  that  he 
would  freely  present  the  money  to  the  young  lady  by  way 
of  a  dowry.  Now,  whether  he  detected  some  spark  of 
life  in  her,  which  those  who  were  nursing  her  had  not  dis- 
covered— for  it  is  said  that,  although  it  was  raining  at  the 
time,  a  vapor  went  up  from  her  face — or  whether  life  was 
really  extinct,  and  he  restored  it  by  the  warmth  of  his 
touch,  is  a  mysterious  problem  which  neither  I  myself  nor 
those  who  were  present  could  decide." 

We  are  naturally  led  at  this  point  to  introduce  a  further 
remark  which  has  its  importance  for  the  understanding  of 
the  facts  of  the  testimony.  All  that  has  been  heretofore 
said  concerns  the  church  writers,  properly  so-called,  the 
literary  remains  of  the  church  considered  as  the  body  of 
right-believing  Christians.  Alongside  of  this  literature, 
however,  there  existed  a  flourishing  growth  of  apocryphal 
writings — Acts  of  Apostles  and  the  like — springing  up  in 
the  fertile  soil  of  Ebionitish  and  Gnostic  heresy,  the  most 
respectable  example  of  which  is  furnished  by  the  Clemen- 
tina. In  these  anonymous,  or  more  usually  pseudonymous, 
writings,  there  is  no  dearth  of  miraculous  story,  from  what- 


18  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

ever  age  they  come.  Later,  these  wild  and  miracle-laden 
documents  were  taken  over  into  the  Catholic  church,  usu- 
ally after  a  certain  amount  of  reworking  by  which  they 
were  cleansed  to  a  greater  or  less — usually  less — extent  of 
their  heresies,  but  not  in  the  least  bit  of  their  apocryphal 
miracle-stories.  Indeed,  by  the  relative  elimination  of 
their  heresies  in  the  Catholic  reworking,  their  teratologics — 
as  the  pedants  call  their  miracle-mongering — was  made 
even  more  the  prominent  feature  of  these  documents,  and 
more  exclusively  the  sole  purpose  of  their  narrative.39  It 
is  from  these  apocryphal  miracle-stories  and  not  from  the 
miracles  of  the  New  Testament,  that  the  luxuriant  growth 
of  the  miraculous  stories  of  later  ecclesiastical  writings  draw 
their  descent.  And  this  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  their 
ultimate  parentage  must  be  traced  to  those  heathen  won- 
der-tales to  which  we  have  just  had  occasion  to  allude. 

For  the  literary  form  exemplified  in  the  Wanderings  of  the 
Apostles  was  not  an  innovation  of  the  Christian  heretics, 
but  had  already  enjoyed  a  vast  popularity  in  the  heathen 
romances  which  swarmed  under  the  empire,  and  the  best 
known  names  of  which  are  Antonius  Diogenes's  Incredible 
Tales  of  Beyond  Thule,  Jamblicus's  Babylonian  Tales,  the 
Ephesian  Stories  of  the  later  Xenophon,  the  Ethiopians  of 
Heliodorus,  the  romances  of  Achiles  Tatius  and  of  Chari- 
ton, not  to  mention  the  Metamorphoses  of  Apuleius.40  R. 
Reitzenstein  no  doubt  insists  that  we  shall  draw  into  a 
somewhat  narrower  category  and  no  longer  speak  of  these 
wonder-tales  with  which  we  have  here  especially  to  do, 
broadly,  as  romances.  He  wishes  to  retain  that  term  to 
describe  a  highly  artistic  literary  form  which,  developing 
out  of  the  historical  monograph,  was  strictly  governed  by 
technical  laws  of  composition  derived  ultimately  from  the 
drama.  With  the  romance  in  this  narrow  sense,  the  collec- 
tions of  marvellous  stories  loosely  strung  together  in  the 
wonder-tales  have  but  a  distant  relationship.  We  must 
not  confuse,  Reitzenstein  counsels  us,  two  kinds  of  fiction, 


CHRISTIAN   WONDER-TALES  19 

which  were  sharply  distinguished  in  ancient  aesthetics, 
TrXdo-fia  and  i/reuSo?,41  or  mix  up  two  literary  forms  which 
were  quite  distinct  in  their  whole  technic  and  style — 
merely  because  they  were  born  together  and  grew  up  side 
by  side.  The  romance  plays  on  every  string  of  human 
emotion;  the  wonder-tale — arelalogy  is  the  name  which 
Reitzenstein  gives  to  this  literary  form — strikes  but  one 
note,  and  has  as  its  single  end  to  arouse  astonishment.42 
It  represented  in  the  ancient  world,  though  in  an  immensely 
more  serious  vein,  our  modern  Gulliver's  Travels  or  Adven- 
tures of  Baron  Munchausen,  which  in  fact  are  parodies  of 
it,  like  their  inimitable  forerunners  with  which  Lucian  has 
delighted  the  centuries.  It  will  be  readily  understood  that 
the  wonder-tale — the  motives  of  the  travelling  prophet  or 
philosopher  having  been  fairly  worked  out — should  eagerly 
seize  on  the  new  material  offered  it  by  Christianity.  But 
as  Von  Dobschiitz  remarks,43  the  matter  did  not  end  by 
its  seizing  on  Christianity.  Christianity  turned  the  tables 
on  it  and  seized  on  it,  and  produced  out  of  it  the  mission 
aretalogy  which  we  know  in  general  as  the  Apocryphal 
Acts  of  the  Apostles. 

With  its  passage  thus  into  Christian  hands  this  literary 
form  lost  none  of  its  marvel-mongery — to  have  lost  which 
would  have  been  to  have  lost  its  soul.  "  'Teratology,' 
'marvellousness,'"  explains  Von  Dobschiitz,44  "is  the  fun- 
damental element  of  these  Christian  romances  also.  This 
is  made  very  clear,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  by  the  circumstance 
that  it  is  regularly  magic  of  which  the  Apostles  are  rep- 
resented as  being  accused.  Of  course  they  do  not  admit 
that  the  accusation  is  just.  Magical  arts  are  demonic  arts, 
and  it  was  precisely  every  kind  of  demonic  power  against 
which  they  set  themselves  in  the  almighty  name  of  Jesus 
Christ.  It  is  most  impressively  shown  that  to  this  name 
every  knee  in  heaven  and  on  earth  and  under  the  earth  is 
to  bow.  We  cannot  help  seeing,  however,  that  only  another 
form  of  magic,  a  Christian  magic,  steps  here  into  the  place 


20  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

of  the  heathen.  The  name  of  Jesus  serves  as  the  all- 
powerful  spell,  the  cross  as  the  irresistible  charm,  by  which 
bolts  can  be  sprung,  doors  opened,  idols  overturned,  poi- 
son rendered  harmless,  the  sick  healed,  the  dead  raised. 
The  demonic  flight  of  the  magician  is  confounded  by  the 
prayer  of  the  Apostles ;  they  are  none  the  less  themselves 
carried  home  on  the  clouds,  through  the  air."  Something 
new  entered  Christianity  in  these  wonder-tales ;  something 
unknown  to  the  Christianity  of  the  Apostles,  unknown 
to  the  Apostolic  churches,  and  unknown  to  their  sober 
successors;  and  it  entered  Christianity  from  without,  not 
through  the  door,  but  climbing  up  some  other  way.  It 
brought  an  abundance  of  miracle-working  with  it;  and,  un- 
fortunately, it  brought  it  to  stay.  But  from  a  contempla- 
tion of  the  swelling  flood  of  marvels  thus  introduced  into 
Christianity,  obviously,  the  theory  of  the  gradual  cessation 
of  miracle-working  in  the  church  through  three  centuries, 
which  we  are  now  examining,  can  derive  no  support.45 

It  may  be  justly  asked,  how  it  can  be  accounted  for  that 
so  large  a  body  of  students  of  history  can  have  committed 
themselves  to  a  view  which  so  clearly  runs  in  the  face  of 
the  plainest  facts  of  the  very  history  they  are  setting  them- 
selves to  explain.  The  answer  is  doubtless  to  be  found  in 
the  curious  power  which  preconceived  theory  has  to  blind 
men  to  facts.  The  theory  which  these  scholars  had  been 
led  to  adopt  as  to  the  cessation  of  miraculous  powers  in  the 
church  required  the  course  of  events  which  they  assume 
to  have  happened.  They  recognized  the  abundant  devel- 
opment of  miraculous  gifts  in  the  Apostolic  Church,  and 
they  argued  that  this  wide-spread  endowment  could 
scarcely  fail  suddenly,  but  must  have  died  out  gradually. 
In  estimating  the  length  of  time  through  which  the  miracle- 
working  might  justly  be  supposed  to  subsist,  and  at  the  end 
of  which  it  might  naturally  be  expected  to  have  died  out, 
they  were  unfortunately  determined  by  a  theory  of  the 
function  of  these  miracles  in  the  Apostolic  Church  which 


PURPOSE  OF  MIRACLES  21 

was  plausible  indeed,  and  because  plausible  attractive,  but 
which  was  not  founded  on  an  accurate  ascertainment  of 
the  teaching  of  the  New  Testament  on  the  subject,  and 
therefore  so  missed  the  truth  that,  in  its  application  to  the 
history  of  the  early  church,  it  exactly  reversed  it.  This 
theory  is  in  brief,  I  may  remind  you,  that  the  miraculous 
powers  present  in  the  early  church  had  for  their  end  super- 
natural assistance  in  founding  the  church;  that  they  were 
therefore  needed  throughout  the  period  of  the  church's 
weak  infancy,  being  in  brief,  as  Fuller  calls  them,  "the 
swaddling-clothes  of  the  infant  churches";  and  that  natur- 
ally they  were  withdrawn  when  their  end  had  been  accom- 
plished and  Christianity  had  ascended  the  throne  of  the 
empire.  When  the  protection  of  the  strongest  power  on 
earth  was  secured,  the  idea  seems  to  be,  the  power  of  God 
was  no  longer  needed.46 

But  whence  can  we  learn  this  to  have  been  the  end  the 
miracles  of  the  Apostolic  age  were  intended  to  serve? 
Certainly  not  from  the  New  Testament.  In  it  not  one 
word  is  ever  dropped  to  this  effect.  Certain  of  the  gifts 
(as,  for  example,  the  gift  of  tongues)  are  no  doubt  spoken 
of  as  "signs  to  those  that  are  without."  It  is  required  of 
all  of  them  that  they  be  exercised  for  the  edification  of  the 
church ;  and  a  distinction  is  drawn  between  them  in  value, 
in  proportion  as  they  were  for  edification.  But  the  immedi- 
ate end  for  which  they  were  given  is  not  left  doubtful,  and 
that  proves  to  be  not  directly  the  extension  of  the  church, 
but  the  authentication  of  the  Apostles  as  messengers  from 
God.  This  does  not  mean,  of  course,  that  only  the  Apostles 
appear  in  the  New  Testament  as  working  miracles,  or  that 
they  alone  are  represented  as  recipients  of  the  charismata. 
But  it  does  mean  that  the  charismata  belonged,  in  a  true 
sense,  to  the  Apostles,  and  constituted  one  of  the  signs  of 
an  Apostle.  Only  in  the  two  great  initial  instances  of  the 
descent  of  the  Spirit  at  Pentecost  and  the  reception  of 
Cornelius  are  charismata  recorded  as  conferred  without 


22  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

the  laying  on  of  the  hands  of  Apostles.47  There  is  no  in- 
stance on  record  of  their  conference  by  the  laying  on  of  the 
hands  of  any  one  else  than  an  Apostle.48  The  case  of  the 
Samaritans,  recorded  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  Acts,  is  not 
only  a  very  instructive  one  in  itself,  but  may  even  be  looked 
upon  as  the  cardinal  instance.  The  church  had  been  prop- 
agated hitherto  by  the  immediately  evangelistic  work  of 
the  Apostles  themselves,  and  it  had  been  accordingly  the 
Apostles  themselves  who  had  received  the  converts  into 
the  church.  Apparently  they  had  all  received  the  power 
of  working  signs  by  the  laying  on  of  the  Apostles'  hands  at 
their  baptism.  The  Samaritans  were  the  first  converts  to 
be  gathered  into  the  church  by  men  who  were  not  Apostles ; 
and  the  signs  of  the  Apostles  were  accordingly  lacking  to 
them  until  Peter  and  John  were  sent  down  to  them  that 
they  might  "receive  the  Holy  Ghost"  (Acts  8  :  14-17). 
The  effect  on  Simon  Magus  of  the  sight  of  these  gifts  spring- 
ing up  on  the  laying  on  of  the  Apostles'  hands,  we  will  all 
remember.  The  salient  statements  are  very  explicit. 
"Then  laid  they  their  hands  upon  them,  and  they  received 
the  Holy  Ghost."  "Now  when  Simon  saw  that  through 
the  laying  on  of  the  Apostles'  hands  the  Holy  Ghost  was 
given."  "Give  me  also  this  power,  that,  on  whomsoever 
I  lay  my  hands,  he  may  receive  the  Holy  Ghost."  It  could 
not  be  more  emphatically  stated  that  the  Holy  Ghost  was 
conferred  by  the  laying  on  of  the  hands,  specifically  of  the 
Apostles,  and  of  the  Apostles  alone;  what  Simon  is  said  to 
have  seen  is  precisely  that  it  was  through  the  laying  on  of 
the  hands  of  just  the  Apostles  that  the  Holy  Ghost  was 
given.  And  there  can  be  no  question  that  it  was  specifically 
the  extraordinary  gifts  of  the  Spirit  that  were  in  discus- 
sion; no  doubt  is  thrown  upon  the  genuineness  of  the  con- 
version of  the  Samaritans ;  on  the  contrary,  this  is  taken  as 
a  matter  of  course,  and  its  assumption  underlies  the  whole 
narrative;  it  constitutes  in  fact  the  very  point  of  the  nar- 
rative. 


CASE  OF  THE  SAMARITANS  23 

This  case  of  the  Samaritans  was  of  great  importance  in 
the  primitive  church,  to  enable  men  to  distinguish  between 
the  gifts  of  grace  and  the  gifts  of  power.  Without  it  there 
would  have  been  danger  that  only  those  would  be  accred- 
ited as  Christians  who  possessed  extraordinary  gifts.  It  is 
of  equal  importance  to  us,  to  teach  us  the  source  of  the 
gifts  of  power,  in  the  Apostles,  apart  from  whom  they  were 
not  conferred:  as  also  their  function,  to  authenticate  the 
Apostles  as  the  authoritative  founders  of  the  church.  It 
is  in  accordance  with  this  reading  of  the  significance  of  this 
incident,  that  Paul,  who  had  all  the  signs  of  an  Apostle, 
had  also  the  power  of  conferring  the  charismata,  and  that 
in  the  entire  New  Testament  we  meet  with  no  instance  of 
the  gifts  showing  themselves — after  the  initial  instances  of 
Pentecost  and  Cornelius — where  an  Apostle  had  not  con- 
veyed them.  Hermann  Cremer  is  accordingly  quite  right 
when  he  says49  that  "the  Apostolic  charismata  bear  the 
same  relation  to  those  of  the  ministry  that  the  Apostolic 
office  does  to  the  pastoral  office";  the  extraordinary  gifts 
belonged  to  the  extraordinary  office  and  showed  themselves 
only  in  connection  with  its  activities.5? .. 

The  connection  of  the  supernatural  gifts  with  the  Apos- 
tles is  so  obvious  that  one  wonders  that  so  many  students 
have  missed  it,  and  have  sought  an  account  of  them  in 
some  other  quarter.  The  true  account  has  always  been 
recognized,  however,  by  some  of  the  more  careful  students 
of  the  subject.  It  has  been  clearly  set  forth,  for  example, 
by  Bishop  Kaye.  "I  may  be  allowed  to  state  the  conclu- 
sion," he  writes,51  "to  which  I  have  myself  been  led  by  a 
comparison  of  the  statements  in  the  Book  of  Acts  with  the 
writings  of  the  Fathers  of  the  second  century.  My  conclu- 
sion then  is,  that  the  power  of  working  miracles  was  not 
extended  beyond  the  disciples  upon  whom  the  Apostles 
conferred  it  by  the  imposition  of  their  hands.  As  the  num- 
ber of  these  disciples  gradually  diminished,  the  instances  of 
the  exercise  of  miraculous  powers  became  continually  less 


24  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

frequent,  and  ceased  entirely  at  the  death  of  the  last  in- 
dividual on  whom  the  hands  of  the  Apostles  had  been  laid. 
That  event  would,  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  take  place 
before  the  middle  of  the  second  century — at  a  time  when 
Christianity,  having  obtained  a  footing  in  all  the  provinces 
of  the  Roman  Empire,  the  miraculous  gifts  conferred  upon 
the  first  teachers  had  performed  their  appropriate  office — 
that  of  proving  to  the  world  that  a  new  revelation  had  been 
given  from  heaven.  What,  then,  would  be  the  effect  pro- 
duced upon  the  minds  of  the  great  body  of  Christians  by 
their  gradual  cessation?  Many  would  not  observe,  none 
would  be  willing  to  observe,  it.  .  .  .  They  who  remarked 
the  cessation  of  miracles  would  probably  succeed  in  per- 
suading themselves  that  it  was  only  temporary  and  de- 
signed by  an  all-wise  Providence  to  be  the  prelude  to  a 
more  abundant  effusion  of  the  supernatural  powers  upon 
the  church.  Or  if  doubts  and  misgivings  crossed  their 
minds,  they  would  still  be  unwilling  to  state  a  fact  which 
might  shake  the  steadfastness  of  their  friends,  and  would 
certainly  be  urged  by  the  enemies  of  the  gospel  as  an  argu- 
ment against  its  divine  origin.  They  would  pursue  the 
plan  which  has  been  pursued  by  Justin  Martyr,  Theophilus, 
Irenasus,  etc.;  they  would  have  recourse  to  general  asser- 
tions of  the  existence  of  supernatural  powers,  without  at- 
tempting to  produce  a  specific  instance  of  their  exer- 
cise. .  .  ."  The  bishop  then  proceeds  to  recapitulate  the 
main  points  and  grounds  of  this  theory.62 

Whatever  we  may  think  of  the  specific  explanation  which 
Bishop  Kaye  presents  of  the  language  of  the  second-cen- 
tury Fathers,  we  can  scarcely  fail  to  perceive  that  the  con- 
finement of  the  supernatural  gifts  by  the  Scriptures  to  those 
who  had  them  conferred  upon  them  by  the  Apostles,  affords 
a  ready  explanation  of  all  the  historical  facts.  It  explains 
the  unobserved  dying  out  of  these  gifts.  It  even  explains 
— what  might  at  first  sight  seem  inconsistent  with  it — the 
failure  of  allusion  to  them  in  the  first  half  of  the  second 


THE   DEEPER   PRINCIPLE  25 

century.  The  great  missionary  Apostles,  Paul  and  Peter, 
had  passed  away  by  A.  D.  68,  and  apparently  only  John 
was  left  in  extreme  old  age  until  the  last  decade  of  the  first 
century.  The  number  of  those  upon  whom  the  hands  of 
Apostles  had  been  laid,  living  still  in  the  second  century, 
cannot  have  been  very  large.  We  know  of  course  of  John's 
pupil  Polycarp ;  we  may  add  perhaps  an  Ignatius,  a  Papias, 
a  Clement,  possibly  a  Hermas,  or  even  a  Leucius;  but  at 
the  most  there  are  few  of  whom  we  know  with  any  definite- 
ness.  That  Justin  and  Irenaeus  and  their  contemporaries 
allude  to  miracle-working  as  a  thing  which  had  to  their 
knowledge  existed  in  their  day,  and  yet  with  which  they 
seem  to  have  little  exact  personal  acquaintance,  is  also  ex- 
plained. Irenaeus's  youth  was  spent  in  the  company  of 
pupils  of  the  Apostles;  Justin  may  easily  have  known  of, 
if  not  even  witnessed,  miracles  wrought  by  Apostolically 
trained  men.  The  fault  of  these  writers  need  have  been 
no  more  than  a  failure  to  observe,  or  to  acknowledge,  the 
cessation  of  these  miracles  during  their  own  time;  so  that 
it  is  not  so  much  the  trustworthiness  of  their  testimony  as 
their  understanding  of  the  changing  times  which  falls  un- 
der criticism.  If  we  once  lay  firm  hold  upon  the  biblical 
principle  which  governed  the  distribution  of  the  miraculous 
gifts,  in  a  word,  we  find  that  we  have  in  our  hands  a  key 
which  unlocks  all  the  historical  puzzles  connected  with 
them. 

There  is,  of  course,  a  deeper  principle  recognizable  here, 
of  which  the  actual  attachment  of  the  charismata  of  the 
Apostolic  Church  to  the  mission  of  the  Apostles  is  but  an 
illustration.  This  deeper  principle  may  be  reached  by  us 
through  the  perception,  more  broadly,  of  the  inseparable 
connection  of  miracles  with  revelation,  as  its  mark  and 
credential;  or,  more  narrowly,  of  the  summing  up  of  all 
revelation,  finally,  in  Jesus  Christ.  Miracles  do  not  ap- 
pear on  the  page  of  Scripture  vagrantly,  here,  there,  and 
elsewhere  indifferently,  without  assignable  reason.    They 


26  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

belong  to  revelation  periods,  and  appear  only  when  God 
is  speaking  to  His  people  through  accredited  messengers, 
declaring  His  gracious  purposes.  Their  abundant  display 
in  the  Apostolic  Church  is  the  mark  of  the  richness  of 
the  Apostolic  age  in  revelation ;  and  when  this  revelation 
period  closed,  the  period  of  miracle-working  had  passed 
by  also,  as  a  mere  matter  of  course.  It  might,  indeed, 
be  a  priori  conceivable  that  God  should  deal  with  men 
atomistically,  and  reveal  Himself  and  His  will  to  each  in- 
dividual, throughout  the  whole  course  of  history,  in  the 
penetralium  of  his  own  consciousness.  This  is  the  mys- 
tic's dream.  It  has  not,  however,  been  God's  way.  He 
has  chosen  rather  to  deal  with  the  race  in  its  entirety, 
and  to  give  to  this  race  His  complete  revelation  of  Himself 
in  an  organic  whole.  And  when  this  historic  process  of 
organic  revelation  had  reached  its  completeness,  and  when 
the  whole  knowledge  of  God  designed  for  the  saving  health 
of  the  world  had  been  incorporated  into  the  living  body  of 
the  world's  thought— there  remained,  of  course,  no  further 
revelation  to  be  made,  and  there  has  been  accordingly  no 
further  revelation  made.  God  the  Holy  Spirit  has  made 
it  His  subsequent  work,  not  to  introduce  new  and  unneeded 
revelations  into  the  world,  but  to  diffuse  this  one  complete 
revelation  through  the  world  and  to  bring  mankind  into  the 
saving  knowledge  of  it. 

As  Abraham  Kuyper  figuratively  expresses  it,63  it  has 
not  been  God's  way  to  communicate  to  each  and  every  man 
a  separate  store  of  divine  knowledge  of  his  own,  to  meet 
his  separate  needs;  but  He  rather  has  spread  a  common 
board  for  all,  and  invites  all  to  come  and  partake  of  the 
richness  of  the  great  feast.  He  has  given  to  the  world  one 
organically  complete  revelation,  adapted  to  all,  sufficient  for 
all,  provided  for  all,  and  from  this  one  completed  revelation 
He  requires  each  to  draw  his  whole  spiritual  sustenance. 
Therefore  it  is  that  the  miraculous  working  which  is  but 
the  sign  of  God's  revealing  power,  cannot  be  expected  to 


MIRACLES   AND   REVELATION  27 

continue,  and  in  point  of  fact  does  not  continue,  after  the 
revelation  of  which  it  is  the  accompaniment  has  been  com- 
pleted. It  is  unreasonable  to  ask  miracles,  says  John  Cal- 
vin— or  to  find  them — where  there  is  no  new  gospel.54  By 
as  much  as  the  one  gospel  suffices  for  all  lands  and  all 
peoples  and  all  times,  by  so  much  does  the  miraculous  at- 
testation of  that  one  single  gospel  suffice  for  all  lands  and 
all  times,  and  no  further  miracles  are  to  be  expected  in 
connection  with  it.  "According  to  the  Scriptures,"  Herman 
Bavinck  explains,55  "special  revelation  has  been  delivered 
in  the  form  of  a  historical  process,  which  reaches  its  end- 
point  in  the  person  and  work  of  Christ.  When  Christ  had 
appeared  and  returned  again  to  heaven,  special  revelation 
did  not,  indeed,  come  at  once  to  an  end.  There  was  yet 
to  follow  the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the  extraor- 
dinary working  of  the  powers  and  gifts  through  and  under 
the  guidance  of  the  Apostolate.  The  Scriptures  undoubt- 
edly reckon  all  this  to  the  sphere  of  special  revelation,  and 
the  continuance  of  this  revelation  was  necessary  to  give 
abiding  existence  in  the  world  to  the  special  revelation 
which  reached  its  climax  in  Christ — abiding  existence  both 
in  the  word  of  Scripture  and  in  the  life  of  the  church. 
Truth  and  life,  prophecy  and  miracle,  word  and  deed,  in- 
spiration and  regeneration  go  hand  in  hand  in  the  comple- 
tion of  special  revelation.  But  when  the  revelation  of 
God  in  Christ  had  taken  place,  and  had  become  in  Scrip- 
ture and  church  a  constituent  part  of  the  cosmos,  then  an- 
other era  began.  As  before  everything  was  a  preparation 
for  Christ,  so  afterward  everything  is  to  be  a  consequence 
of  Christ.  Then  Christ  was  being  framed  into  the  Head 
of  His  people,  now  His  people  are  being  framed  into  the 
Body  of  Christ.  Then  the  Scriptures  were  being  produced, 
now  they  are  being  applied.  New  constituent  elements  of 
special  revelation  can  no  longer  be  added;  for  Christ  has 
come,  His  work  has  been  done,  and  His  word  is  complete." 
Had  any  miracles  perchance  occurred  beyond  the  Apostolic 


28  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

age  they  would  be  without  significance;  mere  occurrences 
with  no  universal  meaning.  What  is  important  is  that "  the 
Holy  Scriptures  teach  clearly  that  the  complete  revelation 
of  God  is  given  in  Christ,  and  that  the  Holy  Spirit  who  is 
poured  out  on  the  people  of  God  has  come  solely  in  order 
to  glorify  Christ  and  to  take  of  the  things  of  Christ."  Be- 
cause Christ  is  all  in  all,  and  all  revelation  and  redemption 
alike  are  summed  up  in  Him,  it  would  be  inconceivable  that 
either  revelation  or  its  accompanying  signs  should  con- 
tinue after  the  completion  of  that  great  revelation  with  its 
accrediting  works,  by  which  Christ  has  been  established  in 
His  rightful  place  as  the  culmination  and  climax  and  all- 
inclusive  summary  of  the  saving  revelation  of  God,  the 
sole  and  sufficient  redeemer  of  His  people. 

At  this  point  we  might  fairly  rest.  But  I  cannot  deny 
myself  the  pleasure  of  giving  you  some  account  in  this  con- 
nection of  a  famous  book  on  the  subject  we  have  been  dis- 
cussing— to  which  indeed  incidental  allusion  has  been  made. 
I  refer  to  Conyers  Middleton's  A  Free  Inquiry  into  the  Mi- 
raculous Powers  which  are  supposed  to  have  subsisted  in  the 
Christian  church  from  the  earliest  ages  through  several  suc- 
cessive centuries.  By  which  it  is  shown  that  we  have  no 
sufficient  reason  to  believe,  upon  the  authority  of  the  primitive 
fathers,  that  any  such  powers  were  continued  to  the  church, 
after  the  days  of  the  A  postles.  Middleton  was  a  doughty  con- 
troversialist, no  less  admired  for  his  English  style,  which 
was  reckoned  by  his  contemporaries  as  second  in  purity 
to  that  of  no  writer  of  his  day  except  Addison  (though 
John  Wesley  more  justly  found  it  stiff  and  pedantic),  than 
feared  for  the  sharpness  and  persistency  of  his  polemics. 
He  was  of  a  somewhat  sceptical  temper  and  perhaps 
cannot  be  acquitted  of  a  certain  amount  of  insincerity. 
We  could  wish  at  least  that  it  were  clearer  that  John  Wes- 
ley's description  of  him  were  undeserved,  as  "aiming  every 
blow,  though  he  seems  to  look  another  way,  at  the  fanatics 
who  wrote  the  Bible." 56    In  this,   his  chief  theological 


MIDDLETON'S  FREE  INQUIRY  29 

work,  however,  Middleton  had  a  subject  where  scepticism 
found  a  proper  mark,  and  he  performs  his  congenial  task 
with  distinct  ability.  His  controversial  spirit  and  a  cer- 
tain harshness  of  tone,  while  they  may  detract  from  the 
pleasure  with  which  the  book  is  read,  do  not  destroy  its 
value  as  a  solid  piece  of  investigation. 

Conscious  of  the  boldness  of  the  views  he  was  about  to 
advocate  and  foreseeing  their  unpopularity,  Middleton  sent 
forth  in  1747  as  a  sort  of  preparation  for  what  was  to  come 
an  Introductory  discourse  to  a  larger  work  designed  hereafter 
to  be  published,  concerning  the  miraculous  powers  which  are 
supposed  to  have  subsisted  in  the  Christian  church  from  the 
earliest  ages  through  several  successive  centuries;  tending  to 
show  that  we  have  no  sufficient  reason  to  believe  upon  the 
authority  of  the  primitive  fatliers,  that  any  such  powers  were 
continued  to  the  church  after  the  days  of  the  Apostles.  With 
a  postscript  .  .  .  (London,  1747).  In  this  Discourse  he 
points  out  the  helplessness  of  the  Anglican  position  in  the 
face  of  Romish  claims.  There  is  no  reason  for  allowing 
miracles  for  the  first  three  centuries  which  is  not  as  good 
or  better  for  allowing  them  for  the  succeeding  centuries: 
and  yet  the  greater  portion  of  the  miracles  of  these  later 
centuries  were  wrought  in  support  of  distinctively  Romish 
teaching,  which,  it  would  seem,  must  be  accepted,  if  their 
attesting  miracles  are  allowed.  Next  year  (1748)  he  pub- 
lished Remarks  on  two  Pamphlets  .  .  .,  which  had  appeared 
in  reply  to  his  Introductory  Discourse;  and  at  length  in 
December,  1748,  he  permitted  the  Free  Inquiry  itself  to 
see  the  light,  fitted  with  a  preface  in  which  an  account  is 
given  of  the  origin  of  the  book,  and  the  position  taken  up 
in  the  Introductory  Discourse  is  pressed  more  sharply  still 
— that  the  genuineness  of  the  ecclesiastical  miracles  being 
once  allowed,  no  stopping-place  can  be  found  until  the 
whole  series  of  alleged  miracles  down  to  our  own  day  be 
admitted.  At  the  end  of  this  preface  Middleton's  own 
view  as  to  the  cause  of  the  cessation  of  the  spiritual  gifts 


30  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

is  intimated,  and  this  proves  to  be  only  a  modification  of 
the  current  Anglican  opinion — that  miracles  subsisted  until 
the  church  had  been  founded  in  all  the"  chief  cities  of  the 
empire,  which,  he  held,  had  been  accomplished  in  the 
Apostolic  times.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  thus  that 
Middleton  reached  his  correct  conclusion  as  to  the  time  of 
the  cessation  of  these  gifts  without  the  help  of  a  right  un- 
derstanding of  the  true  reason  of  their  cessation  with  the 
Apostolic  age ;  purely,  that  is  to  say,  on  empirical  grounds. 
The  Free  Inquiry  itself  is  a  scholarly  piece  of  work  for 
its  time,  and  a  competent  argument.  It  is  disposed  in  five 
parts.  The  first  of  these  simply  draws  out  from  the  sources 
and  presents  in  full  the  testimony  to  miraculous  working 
found  in  the  Fathers  of  the  first  three  centuries.  The 
meagreness  and  indefiniteness  of  their  witness  are  left  to 
speak  for  themselves,  with  only  the  help  of  two  closing 
remarks.  The  one  of  these  presses  the  impossibility  of 
believing  that  the  gifts  were  first  withdrawn  during  the 
first  fifty  years  of  the  second  century  and  then  restored. 
The  other  contrasts  the  patristic  miracles  with  those  of  the 
New  Testament,  with  respect  both  to  their  nature  and  the 
mode  of  their  working.  The  second  section  discusses  the 
persons  who  worked  the  ecclesiastical  miracles.  It  is 
pointed  out  that  no  known  writer  claims  to  have  himself 
wrought  miracles,  or  names  any  of  his  predecessors  as  hav- 
ing done  so.  The  honor  is  left  to  unknown  and  obscure 
men,  and  afterward  to  the  "rotten  bones"  of  saints  who 
while  living  did  no  such  works.  The  third  section  sub- 
jects the  character  of  the  early  Fathers  as  men  of  wisdom 
and  trustworthiness  to  a  severe  and  not  always  perfectly 
fair  criticism,  with  a  view  to  lessening  the  credit  that  should 
be  given  to  their  testimony  in  such  a  matter  as  the  occur- 
rence of  miraculous  workings  in  their  day.  The  fourth 
section  then  takes  up  the  several  kinds  of  miracles  which, 
it  is  pretended,  were  wrought,  and  seeks  to  determine  from 
the  nature  of  each,  in  each  instance  of  its  mention,  whether 


STILL  UNREFUTED  31 

its  credibility  may  be  reasonably  suspected.  Finally,  in 
the  fifth  section,  the  principal  objections  which  had  been 
raised,  or  which  seemed  likely  to  be  raised,  to  the  tenor  of 
the  argument  are  cited  and  refuted. 

The  book  was  received  with  a  storm  of  criticism,  repro- 
bation, even  abuse.  It  was  not  refuted.  Many  published 
careful  and  searching  examinations  of  its  facts  and  argu- 
ments, among  others  Doctor  William  Dodwell 57  (the 
younger)  and  Doctor  Thomas  Church,58  to  whom  Mid- 
dleton  replied  in  a  Vindication,  published  posthumously 
(1751).  After  a  century  and  a  half  the  book  remains  un- 
refuted,  and,  indeed,  despite  the  faults  arising  from  the 
writer's  spirit  and  the  limitations  inseparable  from  the 
state  of  scholarship  in  his  day,  its  main  contention  seems 
to  be  put  beyond  dispute.59 


PATRISTIC  AND  MEDIEVAL  MARVELS 


PATRISTIC  AND   MEDIEVAL  MARVELS 

As  over  against  the  effort  made  more  especially  by- 
Anglican  writers  to  confine  genuine  ecclesiastical  miracles 
to  the  first,  and  in  their  view  the  purest  and  most  authori- 
tative, centuries  of  Christianity,  the  Romish  theologians 
boldly  declare  that  God  has  been  pleased  in  every  age  to 
work  a  multitude  of  evident  miracles  in  His  church.  Be- 
fore this  assertion,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Anglican  theory  is 
helpless,  on  the  ground  whether  of  fact  or  of  principle. 
Of  fact,  because  the  evidence  for  the  later  miracles,  which 
it  denies,  is  very  much  greater  in  volume  and  cogency  than 
that  for  the  earlier  miracles,  which  it  accepts.  Of  prin- 
ciple, because  the  reason  which  it  gives  for  the  continuance 
of  miracles  during  the  first  three  centuries,  if  valid  at  all, 
is  equally  valid  for  their  continuance  to  the  twentieth 
century.  What  we  shall  look  upon  as  the  period  of  the 
planting  of  the  church  is  determined  by  our  point  of  view. 
If  the  usefulness  of  miracles  in  planting  the  church  were 
sufficient  reason  for  their  occurrence  in  the  Roman  Empire 
in  the  third  century,  it  is  hard  to  deny  that  it  may  be  suffi- 
cient reason  for  the  repetition  of  them  in,  say,  the  Chinese 
Empire  in  the  twentieth  century.  And  why  go  to  China? 
Is  not  the  church  still  essentially  in  the  position  of  a  mis- 
sionary church  everywhere  in  this  world  of  unbelief? 
When  we  take  a  really  "long  view"  of  things,  is  it  not  at 
least  a  debatable  question  whether  the  paltry  two  thousand 
years  which  have  passed  since  Christianity  came  into  the 
world  are  not  a  negligible  quantity,  and  the  age  in  which 
we  five  is  not  still  the  age  of  the  primitive  church?  We 
must  adjudge,  therefore,  that  the  Romish  theory  is  the 
more  consistent  and  reasonable  of  the  two.     If  we  are  to 

35 


36  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

admit  that  the  miracles  of  the  first  three  centuries  happened, 
slightly  and  only  generally  witnessed  as  they  are,  we  should 
in  all  reason  go  on  and  admit  that  the  much  more  numerous 
and  much  better  attested  miracles  of  the  fourth  century 
happened  too— and  those  of  the  fifth,  and  of  the  sixth,  and 
of  every  subsequent  century  down  to  our  day. 

The  force  of  this  reasoning  is  interestingly  illustrated  by 
the  conversion  by  it  of  Edward  Gibbon,  in  his  youth,  to 
Roman  Catholicism.  Sir  James  Fitzjames  Stephen  gives 
a  somewhat  caustic  account  of  the  circumstances.  "At 
Oxford,"  he  says,1  "'the  blind  activity  of  idleness'  impelled 
him  to  read  Middleton's  Free  Inquiry.  Yet  he  could  not 
bring  himself  to  follow  Middleton  in  his  attack  on  the  early 
Fathers,  or  to  give  up  the  notion  that  miracles  were  worked 
in  the  early  church  for  at  least  four  or  five  centuries.  'But 
I  was  unable  to  resist  the  weight  of  historical  evidence  that 
within  the  same  period  most  of  the  leading  doctrines  of 
Popery  were  already  introduced  in  theory  and  practice; 
nor  was  the  conclusion  absurd  that  miracles  are  the  test  of 
truth,  and  that  the  church  must  be  orthodox  and  pure 
which  was  so  often  approved  by  the  visible  interposition 
of  the  Deity.' 

"From  the  miracles  affirmed  by  Basil,  Chrysostom,  Au- 
gustine, and  Jerome,  he  inferred  that  celibacy  was  superior 
to  marriage,  that  saints  were  to  be  invoked,  prayers  for  the 
dead  said,  and  the  real  presence  believed  in;  and  whilst 
in  this  frame  of  mind  he  fell  in  with  Bossuet's  Exposition 
and  his  History  of  the  Variations.  'I  read,'  he  says  in  his 
affected  way,  'I  applauded,  I  believed';  and  he  adds  with 
truth  in  reference  to  Bossuet,  'I  surely  fell  by  a  noble  hand.' 
'In  my  present  feelings  it  seems  incredible  that  I  ever 
should  have  believed  in  transubstantiation ;  but  my  con- 
queror oppressed  me  with  the  sacramental  words,  and 
dashed  against  each  other  the  figurative  half-meanings  of 
the  Protestant  sects.  .  .  .' 

"No  one,  we  will  venture  to  say,  has  been  converted  in 


ABOUNDING   MARVELS  37 

the  nineteenth  century  by  a  belief  that,  as  a  fact,  miracles 
were  worked  in  the  early  church,  and  that,  as  a  consequence, 
the  doctrines  professed  at  the  time  must  be  true.  As  a 
rule  the  doctrines  have  carried  the  miracles.  .  .  .  The 
fact  that  the  process  began  at  the  other  end  with  Gibbon 
is  characteristic  both  of  the  man  and  of  the  age ;  but  it  is 
put  in  a  still  stronger  light  by  the  account  which  he  gives 
of  his  reconversion.  .  .  .  The  process  from  first  to  last 
was  emphatically  an  intellectual  one.  .  .  .  Gibbon  him- 
self observes:  'I  still  remember  my  solitary  transport  at 
the  discovery  of  a  philosophical  argument  against  the  doc- 
trine of  transubstantiation :  that  the  text  of  Scripture 
which  seems  to  inculcate  the  real  presence  is  attested  only 
by  a  single  sense — our  sight;  while  the  real  presence  itself 
is  disproved  by  three  of  our  senses — the  sight,  the  touch, 
and  the  taste.'" 

Only  a  brief  account  will  be  necessary  of  the  state  of  the 
case  for  the  fourth  and  later  centuries.  When  we  pass 
from  the  literature  of  the  first  three  into  that  of  the  fourth 
and  succeeding  centuries,  we  leave  at  once  the  region  of 
indefinite  and  undetailed  references  to  miraculous  works 
said  to  have  occurred  somewhere  or  other — no  doubt  the 
references  increase  in  number  and  definiteness  as  the  years 
pass — and  come  into  contact  with  a  body  of  writings  sim- 
ply saturated  with  marvels.  And  whereas  few  writers  were 
to  be  found  in  the  earlier  period  who  professed  to  be  eye- 
witnesses of  miracles,  and  none  who  wrought  them  were 
named  to  us,  in  the  later  period  everybody  appears  to  have 
witnessed  any  number  of  them,  and  the  workers  of  them  are 
not  only  named  but  prove  to  be  the  most  famous  mission- 
aries and  saints  of  the  church.  Nor  must  we  imagine  that 
these  marvels  are  recounted  only  by  obscure  and  otherwise 
unknown  hero-worshippers,  whose  only  claim  to  be  remem- 
bered by  posterity  is  that  they  were  the  overenthusiastic 
admirers  of  the  great  ascetics  of  their  time.  They  are 
rather   the  outstanding  scholars,   theologians,   preachers, 


38  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

organizers  of  the  age.  It  is  Jerome,  the  leading  biblical 
scholar  of  his  day,  who  wrote  the  distressing  lives  of  Paul, 
Hilarion,  and  Malchus;  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  one  of  "the 
three  great  Cappadocians,"  who  narrates  the  fantastic 
doings  of  his  thaumaturgic  namesake;2  the  incomparable 
Athanasius  himself,  who  is  responsible  for  the  life  of  An- 
tony. And  not  to  be  left  behind,  the  greatest  preacher 
of  the  day,  Chrysostom;  the  greatest  ecclesiastic,  Am- 
brose; the  greatest  thinker,  Augustine, — all  describe  for  us 
miraculous  occurrences  of  the  most  incredible  kind  as  hav- 
ing taken  place  within  their  own  knowledge.  It  will  be 
not  only  interesting  but  useful  for  our  purpose,  as  well,  if 
a  specimen  instance  be  brought  before  us  of  how  these 
great  men  dealt  with  miracles. 

Augustine  no  doubt  will  serve  our  purpose  here  as  well 
as  another.  In  the  twenty-second  book3  of  the  City  of 
God,  he  has  circumstantially  related  to  us  a  score  or  more 
of  miracles  which  had  come  under  his  own  observation, 
and  which  he  represents  as  only  a  tithe  of  those  he  could 
relate.  A  considerable  number  of  these  were  wrought  by 
the  relics  of  "the  most  glorious  martyr,  Stephen."  The 
bones  of  Stephen  had  come  to  light  in  Jerusalem  in  415. 
Certain  portions  of  them  were  brought  into  Africa  and 
everywhere  they  were  taken  miracles  were  wrought. 
Somewhere  about  424  Hippo  obtained  its  fragments  and 
enshrined  them  in  a  small  chapel  opening  into  the  cathe- 
dral church,  on  the  archway  of  which  Augustine  caused 
four  verses  to  be  cut,  exhorting  worshippers  to  ascribe  to 
God  all  miracles  wrought  upon  Stephen's  intercession. 
Almost  seventy  miracles  wrought  at  this  shrine  had  been 
officially  recorded  in  less  than  two  years,  while  incom- 
parably more,  Augustine  tells  us,  had  been  wrought  at  the 
neighboring  town  of  Calama,  which  had  received  its  relics 
earlier.  "Think,  beloved,"  he  cries,  in  the  sermon  which 
he  preached  on  the  reception  of  the  relics,  "what  the  Lord 
must  have  in  store  for  us  in  the  land  of  the  living,  when 


RESUSCITATIONS   OF  THE   DEAD  39 

He  bestows  so  much  in  the  ashes  of  the  dead."  Even  the 
dead  were  raised  at  these  shrines,  with  great  promptness 
and  facility.  Here  are  some  of  the  instances  recorded  by 
Augustine  with  complete  confidence.4 

"Eucharius,  a  Spanish  priest  residing  at  Calama,  was 
for  a  long  time  a  sufferer  from  stone.  By  the  relics  of  the 
same  martyr  (Stephen)  which  the  bishop  Possidius  brought 
him,  he  was  cured.  Afterward  the  same  priest  sinking 
under  another  disease,  was  lying  dead,  and  already  they 
were  binding  his  hands.  By  the  succor  of  the  same  martyr 
he  was  raised  to  life,  the  priest's  cloak  having  been  brought 
from  the  oratory  and  laid  upon  the  corpse.  .  .  .  Audurus 
is  the  name  of  an  estate  where  there  is  a  church  that  con- 
tains a  memorial  shrine  of  the  martyr  Stephen.  It  hap- 
pened that,  as  a  little  boy  was  playing  in  the  court,  the 
oxen  drawing  a  wagon  went  out  of  the  track  and  crushed 
him  with  the  wheel,  so  that  immediately  he  seemed  at  his 
last  gasp.  His  mother  snatched  him  up  and  laid  him  at 
the  shrine,  and  not  only  did  he  revive  but  also  appeared 
uninjured.  A  religious  female  who  lived  at  Caspalium,  a 
neighboring  estate,  when  she  was  so  ill  as  to  be  despaired 
of,  had  her  dress  brought  to  this  shrine,  but  before  it  was 
brought  back  she  was  gone.  However,  her  parents  wrapped 
her  corpse  in  the  dress,  and,  her  breath  returning,  she  be- 
came quite  well.  At  Hippo,  a  Syrian  called  Bassus  was 
praying  at  the  relics  of  the  same  martyr  for  his  daughter, 
who  was  dangerously  ill.  He  too  had  brought  her  dress 
with  him  to  the  shrine.  But  as  he  prayed,  behold,  his  ser- 
vants ran  from  the  house  to  tell  him  she  was  dead.  His 
friends,  however,  intercepted  them  and  forbade  them  to 
tell  him,  lest  he  should  bewail  her  in  public.  And  when 
he  returned  to  his  house  which  was  already  ringing  with  the 
lamentations  of  his  family,  and  had  thrown  on  his  daugh- 
ter's body  the  dress  he  was  carrying,  she  was  restored  to 
life.  There,  too,  the  son  of  a  man,  Irenaeus,  one  of  the  tax- 
gatherers,  took  ill  and  died.    And  while  his  body  was  lying 


40  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

lifeless,  and  the  last  rites  were  being  prepared,  amidst  the 
weeping  and  mourning  of  all,  one  of  the  friends  who  were 
consoling  the  father  suggested  that  the  body  should  be 
anointed  with  the  oil  of  the  same  martyr.  It  was  done 
and  he  was  revived.  Likewise,  Eleusinus,  a  man  of  trib- 
unitian  rank  among  us,  laid  his  infant  son,  who  had  died, 
on  the  shrine  of  the  martyr,  which  is  in  the  suburb  where 
he  lived,  and,  after  prayer,  which  he  poured  out  there  with 
many  tears,  he  took  up  his  child  alive."5 

Not  all  the  miracles  which  Augustine  includes  in  this 
anthology  were  wrought,  however,  by  the  bones  of  Stephen. 
Even  before  these  bones  had  been  discovered,  miracles  of 
the  most  astonishing  character  had  occurred  within  his 
own  personal  knowledge.  He  tells  us,  for  example,  of  the 
restoration  of  a  blind  man  to  sight  at  Milan — "when  I 
was  there,"  he  says — by  the  remains  of  the  martyrs  Pro- 
tasius  and  Gervasius,  discovered  to  Ambrose  in  a  dream. 
And  he  tells  us  with  great  circumstantiality  of  a  miraculous 
cure  of  fistula  wrought  in  Carthage — "in  my  presence  and 
under  my  own  eyes,"  he  says — when  he  and  Alypius  had 
just  returned  from  Italy.  A  special  interest  attaches  to 
these  early  instances,  because  Augustine,  although  an  eye- 
witness of  them,  and  although  he  insists  on  his  having  been 
an  eye-witness  of  them  as  their  attestation,  does  not  seem 
to  have  recognized  their  miraculous  character  until  long 
afterward.  For  Augustine's  hearty  belief  in  contemporary 
miracles,  illustrated  by  the  teeming  list  now  before  us,  was 
of  slow  growth.  It  was  not  until  some  years  after  his  re- 
turn to  Africa  that  it  became  easy  to  him  to  acknowledge 
their  occurrence.  He  arrived  in  Africa  in  388,  but  still  in 
his  treatises,  On  the  True  Religion,  which  was  written  about 
390,  and  On  the  Usefullness  of  Believing,  written  in  391  or 
392,  we  find  him  speaking  on  the  hypothesis  that  miracles 
no  longer  happened.  "We  perceive,"  he  writes  in  the 
former  of  these  treatises,6  "that  our  ancestors,  by  that 
measure  of  faith  by  which  the  ascent  is  made  from  tem- 


AUGUSTINE'S  EARLY  DOUBTS  41 

poral  things  to  eternal,  obtained  visible  miracles  (for  thus 
only  could  they  do  it) ;  and  through  them  it  has  been  brought 
about  that  these  should  no  longer  be  necessary  for  their 
descendants.  For  when  the  Catholic  Church  had  been  dif- 
fused and  established  through  the  whole  world,  these  mir- 
acles were  no  longer  permitted  to  continue  in  our  time,  lest 
the  mind  should  always  seek  visible  things,  and  the  human 
race  should  be  chilled  by  the  customariness  of  the  very 
things  whose  novelty  had  inflamed  them."  Similarly,  in 
the  latter  treatise,  after  enumerating  the  miracles  of  our 
Lord,  he  asks,7  "Why  do  not  these  things  take  place  now?" 
and  answers,  "Because  they  would  not  move  unless  they 
were  wonderful,  and  if  they  were  customary  they  would  not 
be  wonderful."  "  Even  the  marvels  of  nature,  great  and 
wonderful  as  they  are,"  he  continues,  "  have  ceased  to  sur- 
prise and  so  to  move;  and  God  has  dealt  wisely  with  us, 
therefore,  in  sending  his  miracles  once  for  all  to  convince 
the  world,  depending  afterward  on  the  authority  of  the 
multitudes  thus  convinced." 

Subsequently  at  the  close  of  his  life,  reviewing  these  pas- 
sages in  his  Retractations,  he  supposes  it  enough  to  say  that 
what  he  meant  was  not  that  no  miracles  were  still  wrought 
in  his  own  day,  but  only  that  none  were  wrought  which 
were  as  great  as  those  our  Lord  wrought,  and  that  not  all 
the  kinds  our  Lord  wrought  continued  to  be  wrought.8 
"For,"  says  he,9  "those  that  are  baptized  do  not  now  re- 
ceive the  Spirit  on  the  imposition  of  hands,  so  as  to  speak 
in  the  tongues  of  all  the  peoples;  neither  are  the  sick 
healed  by  the  shadow  of  the  preachers  of  Christ  falling  on 
them  as  they  pass;  and  other  such  things  as  were  then 
done,  are  now  manifestly  ceased."  What  he  said,  he  in- 
sists,10 is  not  to  be  taken  as  meaning  that  no  miracles  at 
all  were  to  be  believed  to  be  performed  still  in  Christ's 
name.  "  For  I  myself,  when  I  wrote  that  book  " — the  book 
On  the  True  Religion — "already  knew  that  a  blind  man 
had  been  given  his  sight  at  Milan,  by  the  bodies  of  the 


42  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

martyrs  in  that  city;  and  certain  other  things  which  were 
done  at  that  time  in  numbers  sufficient  to  prevent  our  know- 
ing them  all  or  our  enumerating  all  we  knew."  This  ex- 
planation seems  scarcely  adequate;  but  it  suggests  that  the 
starting-point  of  Augustine's  belief  in  contemporary  mir- 
acles is  to  be  sought  in  Milan — although  it  appears  that 
some  time  was  required  after  he  had  left  Milan  for  the  be- 
lief to  ripen  in  his  mind. 

A  sufficiently  odd  passage  in  one  of  his  letters — written 
in  404 — seems  to  illustrate  at  once  the  Milanese  origin  of 
his  miracle-faith  and  the  process  of  its  growth  to  maturity.11 
There  had  been  a  scandal  in  the  household;  one  member 
of  it  had  accused  another  of  a  crime,  and  Augustine  was  in 
doubt  which  of  the  two  was  really  at  fault.  "I  fixed  upon 
the  following  as  a  means  of  discovering  the  truth,"  he 
writes.  "Both  pledged  themselves  in  a  solemn  compact 
to  go  to  a  holy  place,  where  the  awe-inspiring  works  of 
God  might  much  more  readily  make  manifest  the  evil  of 
which  either  of  them  was  conscious,  and  compel  the  guilty 
to  confess,  either  by  judgment  or  through  fear  of  judgment." 
God  is  everywhere,  it  is  true ;  and  able  to  punish  or  reward 
in  secret  as  He  will.  "But,"  continues  Augustine,  "in  re- 
gard to  the  answers  of  prayer  which  are  visible  to  men,  who 
can  search  out  the  reasons  for  appointing  some  places  rather 
than  others  to  be  the  scenes  of  miraculous  interpositions?" 
The  grave  of  a  certain  Felix  suggested  itself  to  him  as  a 
suitable  place  to  send  his  culprits.  True,  no  supernatural 
events  had  ever  occurred  there.  But,  he  writes,  "I  myself 
knew  how,  at  Milan,  at  the  tomb  of  the  saints,  where 
demons  are  brought  in  a  most  marvellous  and  awful  man- 
ner to  confess  their  deeds,  a  thief,  who  had  come  thither 
intending  to  deceive  by  perjuring  himself,  was  compelled 
to  own  his  thefts  and  restore  what  he  had  taken  away." 
"And  is  not  Africa  also,"  he  asks,  "full  of  the  bodies  of  holy 
martyrs?"  "Yet  we  do  not  know  of  such  things  being 
done  here,"  he  confesses.     "Even  as  the  gift  of  healing  and 


CONFLICTING   MIRACLES  43 

the  gift  of  discerning  of  spirits,"  he  explains,  "are  not  given 
to  all  saints,  as  the  Apostle  declares ;  so  it  is  not  at  all  the 
tombs  of  the  saints  that  it  hath  pleased  Him  who  divideth 
to  each  severally  as  He  will,  to  cause  such  miracles  to  be 
wrought."  As  late  as  404,  then,  there  were  as  yet  no  mir- 
acle-working shrines  in  Africa.  Augustine,  however,  is 
busily  at  work  producing  them.  And  twenty  years  later 
we  see  them  in  full  activity. 

It  was  naturally  a  source  of  embarrassment  to  Augustine 
that  the  heretics  had  miracles  to  appeal  to  just  like  his  own ; 
and  that  the  heathen  had  had  something  very  like  them  from 
time  immemorial.  The  miracles  of  the  heretics  he  was  in- 
clined to  reject  out  of  hand.  They  never  happened,  he 
said.  On  the  other  hand,  he  did  not  dream  of  denying  the 
actual  occurrence  of  the  heathen  miracles.  He  only  strained 
every  nerve  to  put  them  in  a  different  class  from  his  own. 
They  stood  related  to  his,  he  said,  as  the  marvels  wrought 
by  Pharaoh's  magicians  did  to  Moses'  miracles.  Mean- 
while, there  the  three  sets  of  miracles  stood,  side  by  side, 
apparently  just  alike,  and  to  be  distinguished  only  by  the 
doctrines  with  which  they  were  severally  connected.  A 
passage  in  the  thirteenth  tractate  on  John  on  Donatist 
miracles  (he  calls  them  "miracle-ettes"),  is  very  instruc- 
tive. This  tractate  seems  to  have  been  delivered  subse- 
quently to  416,  and  therefore  represents  Augustine's  later 
views.  "Let  no  one  tell  you  fables,  then,"  he  cries,12 
"saying,  'Pontius  wrought  a  miracle,  and  Donatus  prayed 
and  God  answered  him  from  heaven.'  In  the  first  place, 
either  they  are  deceived  or  they  deceive.  In  the  last  place, 
grant  that  he  removes  mountains:  'And  have  not  charity,' 
says  the  Apostle,  'I  am  nothing.'  Let  us  see  whether  he 
has  charity.  I  would  believe  that  he  had,  if  he  had  not 
divided  unity.  For  against  those  whom  I  may  call  marvel- 
workers,  my  God  has  put  me  on  my  guard,  saying,  '  In  the 
last  times  there  shall  arise  false  prophets  doing  signs  and 
wonders,  to  lead  into  error,  if  it  were  possible,  even  the 


44  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

elect.  Lo,  I  have  foretold  it  to  you.'  Therefore  the  Bride- 
groom has  cautioned  us,  that  we  ought  not  to  be  deceived 
even  by  miracles."  Similarly  the  heathen  and  Christian 
miracles  are  pitted  against  one  another,  and  decision  be- 
tween them  sought  on  grounds  lying  outside  the  miracles 
themselves.  "Which,  then,  can  more  readily  be  believed 
to  work  miracles  ?  They  who  wish  themselves  to  be  reck- 
oned gods  by  those  on  whom  they  work  miracles,  or  those 
whose  sole  object  in  working  any  miracles  is  to  induce  faith 
in  God,  or  in  Christ  also  as  God?  .  .  .  Let  us  therefore 
believe  those  who  both  speak  the  truth  and  work  mir- 
acles." 13  It  is  not  the  empirical  fact  which  counts — there 
were  all  too  many  empirical  facts  to  count — but  the  truth 
lying  behind  the  empirical  fact.14 

What  now  are  we  to  think  of  these  miracles  which  Au- 
gustine and  his  fellows  narrate  to  us  in  such  superabun- 
dance ? 

We  should  perhaps  note  at  the  outset  that  the  marvellous 
stories  do  not  seem  to  have  met  with  universal  credence 
when  first  published.  They  seem  indeed  to  have  attracted 
very  little  attention.  Augustine  bitterly  complains  that 
so  little  was  made  of  them.15  Each  was  known  only  in  the 
spot  where  it  was  wrought,  and  even  then  only  to  a  few 
persons.  If  some  report  of  it  happened  to  be  carried  to 
other  places  no  sufficient  authority  existed  to  give  it  prompt 
and  unwavering  acceptance.  He  records  how  he  himself 
had  sharply  rebuked  a  woman  who  had  been  miraculously 
cured  of  a  cancer  for  not  publishing  abroad  the  blessing  she 
had  received.  Her  physician  had  laughed  at  her,  she  said ; 
and  moreover  she  had  not  really  concealed  it.  Outraged, 
however,  on  finding  that  not  even  her  closest  acquaintances 
had  ever  heard  of  it,  he  dragged  her  from  her  seclusion  and 
gave  the  utmost  publicity  to  her  story.  In  odd  parallelism 
to  the  complaint  of  his  somewhat  older  contemporary,  the 
heathen  historian  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  who  in  wistful 
regret  for  the  portents  which  were  gone,  declared  stoutly 


DISBELIEF  IN  THE   MIRACLES  45 

that  they  nevertheless  still  occurred,  only  "nobody  heeds 
them  now,"16  Augustine  asserted  that  innumerable  Chris- 
tian miracles  were  constantly  taking  place,  only  no  notice 
was  taken  of  them.17 

It  was  not  merely  indifference,  however,  which  they  en- 
countered, but  definite  disbelief.  Many  (plurimi)  shook 
their  heads  at  what  Sulpitius  Severus  told  in  the  second 
book  of  his  Dialogues  of  the  deeds  of  Martin  of  Tours — so 
many  that  he  felt  constrained  carefully  to  give  his  authori- 
ties in  the  next  book  for  each  miracle  that  he  recorded. 
"Let  them  accept,"  he  says  in  announcing  his  purpose  to 
do  so,18  "  the  evidence  of  people  still  living,  and  believe  them, 
seeing  that  they  doubt  my  good  faith."  In  the  first  book 
of  his  Dialogues,19  indeed,  he  represents  his  collocutor — his 
Gallic  friend  Postumianus — as  saying  to  him  frankly:  "I 
shudder  to  tell  what  I  have  lately  heard— that  a  miserable 
man  (I  do  not  know  him)  has  said  that  you  have  told  many 
lies  in  that  book  of  yours" — that  is,  in  his  Life  of  Martin. 
The  reason  Postumianus  gives  for  his  shuddering,  however, 
is  what  most  interests  us.  It  is  that  doubt  of  the  actual 
occurrence  of  these  miracles  is  a  constructive  assault  upon 
the  credibility  of  the  Gospels.  "  For,"  Postumianus  argues, 
"since  the  Lord  Himself  testified  that  such  works  as  Mar- 
tin's were  to  be  done  by  all  the  faithful,  he  who  does  not 
believe  that  Martin  did  them  simply  does  not  believe  that 
Christ  uttered  such  words."  In  point  of  fact,  of  course, 
Christ  did  not  utter  these  words ;  the  appeal  is  to  the  spuri- 
ous "last  twelve  verses  of  Mark."  We  see,  however,  that 
the  belief  that  Christ  uttered  these  words  was  a  powerful 
co-operating  cause  inducing  belief  in  the  actual  occurrence 
of  the  alleged  marvels.  It  seemed  an  arraignment  of  Christ 
to  say  that  His  most  distinguished  followers  did  not  do 
the  works  which  Christ  had  promised  that  all  His  followers 
should  do.  The  actual  occurrence  of  the  miracles  was 
proved  quite  as  much  by  the  fancied  promise  of  the  Gospel 
as  by  ocular  evidence.20 


46  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

It  is  a  very  disturbing  fact  further  that  the  very  Fathers 
who  record  long  lists  of  miracles  contemporary  with  them- 
selves, yet  betray  a  consciousness  that  miracles  had  never- 
theless, in  some  sense  or  other,  ceased  with  the  Apostolic 
age.  When  Ambrose,  for  example,  comes  to  speak  of  the 
famous  discovery  of  the  bodies  of  the  two  martyrs,  Prota- 
sius  and  Gervasius,  at  Milan,  and  the  marvels  which  accom- 
panied and  followed  their  discovery,  he  cannot  avoid  ex- 
pressing surprise  and  betraying  the  fact  that  this  was  to 
him  a  new  thing.  "The  miracles  of  old  time,"  he  cries,21 
"are  come  again,  when  by  the  advent  of  the  Lord  Jesus  a 
fuller  grace  was  shed  upon  the  earth."  Augustine,  in  like 
manner,  in  introducing  his  account  of  contemporaneous 
miracles  which  we  have  already  quoted,  begins  by  adduc- 
ing the  question:  "Why  do  not  those  miracles  take  place 
now,  which,  as  you  preach,  took  place  once?"  "I  might 
answer,"  he  replies,  "that  they  were  necessary  before  the 
world  believed,  that  it  might  believe,"  and  then  he  goes  on 
to  say,  as  we  have  seen,  that  "miracles  were  wrought  in 
his  time,  but  they  were  not  so  public  and  well  attested  as 
the  miracles  of  the  Gospel."  Nor  were  the  contemporary 
miracles,  he  testifies,  so  great  as  those  of  the  Gospels,  nor 
did  they  embrace  all  the  kinds  which  occur  there.  So 
Chrysostom  says:22  "Argue  not  because  miracles  do  not 
happen  now,  that  they  did  not  happen  then.  ...  In  those 
times  they  were  profitable,  and  now  they  are  not." 
Again:23  "Why  are  there  not  those  now  who  raise  the  dead 
and  perform  cures?  .  .  .  When  nature  was  weak,  when 
faith  had  to  be  planted,  then  there  were  many  such ;  but  now 
He  wills  not  that  we  should  hang  on  these  miracles  but  be 
ready  for  death."  Again :  "Where  is  the  Holy  Spirit  now ? 
a  man  may  ask;  for  then  it  was  appropriate  to  speak  of 
Him  when  miracles  took  place,  and  the  dead  were  raised 
and  all  lepers  were  cleansed,  but  now.  .  .  ."  Again:  "The 
Apostles  indeed  enjoyed  the  grace  of  God  in  abundance; 
but  if  we  were  bidden  to  raise  the  dead,  or  open  the  eyes  of 


MIRACLES   HAD    CEASED  47 

the  blind,  or  cleanse  lepers,  or  straighten  the  lame,  or  cast 
out  devils  and  heal  the  like  disorders.  .  .  ."  Chrysostom 
fairly  teems  with  expressions  implying  that  miracle-working 
of  every  kind  had  ceased  ;24  he  declares  in  the  crispest  way, 
"Of  miraculous  powers,  not  even  a  vestige  is  left"  ;25  and  yet 
he  records  instances  from  his  day !  Isodore  of  Pelusium 
similarly  looks  upon  miracles  as  confined  to  the  Apostolic 
times,  adding:26  "Perhaps  miracles  would  take  place  now, 
too,  if  the  lives  of  the  teachers  rivalled  the  bearing  of  the 
Apostles;  though  even  if  they  did  not,  such  a  life  would 
suffice  for  the  enlightenment  of  those  who  beheld  it."  The 
same  significant  distinguishing  of  times  follows  us  down 
the  years.  Thus  Gregory  the  Great  at  the  end  of  the  sixth 
century,  though  the  very  type  of  a  miracle-lover,  never- 
theless, writing  on  Mark  16  :  17,  says;27  "Is  it  so,  my  breth- 
ren, that  because  ye  do  not  these  signs,  ye  do  not  believe? 
On  the  contrary,  they  were  necessary  in  the  beginning  of 
the  church ;  for,  that  faith  might  grow,  it  required  miracles 
to  cherish  it  withal;  just  as  when  we  plant  shrubs,  we 
water  them  until  we  see  them  to  thrive  in  the  ground,  and 
as  soon  as  they  are  well  rooted  we  cease  our  irrigation." 
He  proceeds  to  say  that  the  wonders  of  grace  are  greater 
than  miracles.  Isodore  of  Seville  at  the  opening  of  the 
next  century  writes  in  precisely  the  same  spirit.28  "The 
reason  why  the  church  does  not  now  do  the  miracles  it 
did  under  the  Apostles,"  he  explains,  "is,  because  miracles 
were  necessary  then  to  convince  the  world  of  the  truth  of 
Christianity;  but  now  it  becomes  it,  being  so  convinced, 
to  shine  forth  in  good  works.  .  .  .  Whoever  seeks  to  per- 
form miracles  now  as  a  believer,  seeks  after  vainglory  and 
human  applause.  For  it  is  written:  'Tongues  are  for  a 
sign,  not  to  them  that  believe,  but  to  them  that  believe 
not.'  Observe,  a  sign  is  not  necessary  for  believers,  who 
have  already  received  the  faith,  but  for  unbelievers  that 
they  may  be  converted.  For  Paul  miraculously  cured  the 
father  of  Publius  of  a  fever  for  the  benefit  of  unbelievers; 


48  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

but  he  restores  believing  Timothy  when  ill,  not  by  prayer, 
but  by  medicine;  so  that  you  may  clearly  perceive  that 
miracles  were  wrought  for  unbelievers  and  not  for  be- 
lievers." Even  in  the  thirteenth  century,  Bernard,  com- 
menting on  Mark  16  :  17,  asks:29  "For  who  is  there  that 
seems  to  have  these  signs  of  the  faith,  without  which  no 
one,  according  to  this  Scripture,  shall  be  saved?"  and  an- 
swers just  as  Gregory  did,  by  saying  that  the  greatest  mir- 
acles are  those  of  the  renewed  life.  The  common  solution 
of  this  inconsistent  attitude  toward  miracles,  that  the  eccle- 
siastical miracles  were  only  recognized  as  differing  in  kind 
from  those  of  the  Scripture,  while  going  a  certain  way,  will 
hardly  suffice  for  the  purpose.  Ecclesiastical  miracles  of 
every  conceivable  kind  were  alleged.  Every  variety  of  mir- 
acle properly  so-called  Chrysostom  declares  to  have  ceased. 
It  is  the  contrast  between  miracles  as  such  and  wonders  of 
grace  that  Gregory  draws.  No  doubt  we  must  recognize 
that  these  Fathers  realized  that  the  ecclesiastical  miracles 
were  of  a  lower  order  than  those  of  Scripture.  It  looks 
very  much  as  if,  when  they  were  not  inflamed  by  enthu- 
siasm, they  did  not  really  think  them  to  be  miracles  at  all.30 
It  is-  observable  further  that,  throughout  the  whole  pa- 
tristic and  mediaeval  periods  at  least,  it  is  difficult  to  dis- 
cover any  one  who  claims  to  have  himself  wrought  miracles. 
"It  may  seem  somewhat  remarkable,"  says  Gibbon,31 
"that  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  who  records  so  many  miracles 
of  his  friend,  St.  Malachi,  never  takes  any  notice  of  his  own, 
which  in  their  turn,  however,  are  carefully  related  by  his 
companions  and  disciples.  In  the  long  series  of  ecclesi- 
astical history,  does  there  exist  a  single  instance  of  a  saint 
asserting  that  he  himself  possessed  the  gift  of  miracles?" 
There  is  certainly  a  notable  phenomenon  here  which  may 
be  brought  to  its  sharpest  point  by  recalling  along  with  it 
two  facts.  First,  Christ  and  His  Apostles  present  a  strong 
contrast  with  it.  Our  Lord  appeals  to  His  own  works,  and 
Paul  to  his  own,  in  proof  of  their  mission.     Secondly,  Ber- 


MODESTY  OF  THE  SAINTS  49 

nard,  for  example,  not  only  does  not  claim  to  have  worked 
miracles  himself,  but,  as  we  have  seen,  seems  to  speak  at 
times  as  if  he  looked  upon  miracles  as  having  ceased  with 
the  Apostles. 

It  is  very  instructive  to  observe  how  J.  H.  Newman  en- 
deavors to  turn  the  edge  of  Gibbon's  inquiry.  "  I  observe 
then,  first,"  he  says,32  "that  it  is  not  often  that  the  gift  of 
miracles  is  even  ascribed  to  a  saint.  In  many  cases  mir- 
acles are  only  ascribed  to  their  tombs  or  relics;  or  where 
miracles  are  ascribed  to  them  when  living,  these  are  but 
singular  or  occasional,  not  parts  of  a  series."  "Moreover," 
he  adds  as  his  second  answer,  "they  are  commonly  what 
Paley  calls  tentative  miracles,  or  some  out  of  many  which 
have  been  attempted,  and  have  been  done  accordingly 
without  any  previous  confidence  in  their  power  to  effect 
them.  Moses  and  Elijah  could  predict  the  result;  but  the 
miracles  in  question  were  scarcely  more  than  experiments 
and  trials,  even  though  success  had  been  granted  to  them 
many  times  before.  Under  these  circumstances,  how  could 
the  individual  men  who  wrought  them  appeal  to  them 
themselves?  It  was  not  till  afterward,  when  their  friends 
and  disciples  could  calmly  look  back  upon  their  life,  and 
review  the  various  actions  and  providences  which  occurred 
in  the  course  of  it,  that  they  would  be  able  to  put  together 
the  scattered  tokens  of  divine  favor,  none  or  few  of  which 
might  in  themselves  be  a  certain  evidence  of  a  miraculous 
power.  As  well  might  we  expect  men  in  their  lifetime  to 
be  called  saints  as  workers  of  miracles."  There  still  re- 
mains in  reserve  a  third  argument,  which  amounts  to  say- 
ing that  the  workers  of  ecclesiastical  miracles  were  modest 
men,  "as  little  inclined  to  proclaim  them  aloud  as  to  make 
a  boast  of  their  graces." 

The  whole  tenor  of  this  representation  of  the  relation  of 
the  miracle-workers  of  the  patristic  and  mediaeval  church 
to  their  miracles  is  artificial.  It  is  nothing  less  than  lu- 
dicrous to  speak  of  the  miracles  ascribed  to  a  Martin  of 


50  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

Tours  or  a  Gregory  Thaumaturgus  as  "tentative,"  or  as 
attempted  with  incomplete  confidence.  It  is  equally  lu- 
dicrous to  represent  incomplete  assurance  on  the  part  of  a 
saint  with  respect  to  his  miracles  before  they  were  wrought 
as  prolonging  itself  throughout  his  life,  after  they  were 
wrought.  Meanwhile  the  fact  remains  that  throughout 
the  history  of  the  church  miracles  have  rather  been  thrust 
upon  than  laid  claim  to  by  their  workers.33  Nor  did  there 
ever  lack  those  who  openly  repudiated  the  notion  that 
any  necessary  connection  existed  between  saintliness  and 
miracle-working.  Richard  Rolle  of  Hampole,  who  also 
became  posthumously  a  miracle-worker,  was  in  his  life- 
time pronounced  no  saint  because  he  wrought  no  miracles. 
His  reply  was  to  the  effect  that  the  inference  was  inconse- 
quent. "Not  all  saints,"  he  said,34  "do  or  have  done  mir- 
acles, neither  in  life  nor  after  death;  nor  do  all  reprobates 
either  in  life  or  after  death  lack  miracles;  frequently  the 
mediocre  good  and  less  perfect  do  miracles,  and  many  who 
are  seated  highest  in  the  heavens  before  the  face  of  God 
remain  quiet  within."  35  "Many  bodies,"  he  says,  "have 
been  translated  on  earth  whose  souls  perchance  have  not 
yet  attained  heaven."  "  Saints  are  not  carried  to  the  super- 
natural seats  for  the  reason  that  they  have  showed  wonders, 
for  some  wicked  men,  too,  have  done  this;  but  truth  has 
desired  that  the  more  ardently  one  loves,  the  more  highly 
shall  he  be  elevated,  the  more  honorably  shall  he  be  seated 
among  the  angels."  36  "It  is  not  necessary  now,"  he  con- 
tinues quite  in  the  vein  of  Augustine,  "that  miracles 
should  be  shown,  since  throughout  the  whole  world  many 
abide  in  memory ;  but  there  is  need  that  before  the  eyes  of 
all  should  be  shown  the  example  of  that  work.  ..." 

In  remarks  like  these  there  is  manifested  a  certain  de- 
preciation of  the  value  of  miracles,  assuredly  not  strange 
in  the  circumstances.  And  we  are  bound  to  carry  this  a 
step  further  and  to  recognize  that  a  great  mass  of  these 
miracles  are  alleged  to  have  been  wrought  in  the  interest 


MIRACLES  AND   SUPERSTITION  51 

of  what  we  must  pronounce  grave  errors.  J.  H.  Newman, 
in  a  passage  just  quoted,  remarks  that  many  miracles  are 
ascribed  to  the  tombs  or  relics  of  the  saints,  rather  than  to 
the  saints  themselves;  and  this  is  only  an  example  of  the 
uses  to  which  they  have  been  put.  So  many  were  wrought 
in  connection  with  superstitions  which  grew  up  about  the 
Eucharist,  for  instance,  that  "wonders  wrought  by  the 
Eucharist"  is  made  one  of  the  main  divisions  of  the  article, 
"Wonders,"  in  Smith  and  Cheatham's  Dictionary  of  Chris- 
tian Antiquities?1  Thus,  for  example,  "Cyprian  speaks  of 
a  person  who  had  lapsed  in  persecution  attempting  to  com- 
municate ;  when  on  opening  the  area  or  receptacle  in  which 
the  consecrated  bread  was  reserved,  fire  burst  out  from  it 
and  prevented  her.  Another,  on  attending  church  with 
the  same  purpose,  found  that  he  had  received  from  the 
priest  nothing  but  a  cinder."  38  Ambrose  relates  that  one 
of  his  friends  called  Satyrus  was  piously  inclined  but  not 
yet  admitted  to  the  sacrament.  "In  this  state  he  hap- 
pened to  suffer  shipwreck  in  his  passage  from  Africa." 
"Says  Ambrose:  'Satyrus,  not  being  afraid  of  death,  but  to 
die  only  before  he  had  taken  of  these  mysteries,  begged  of 
some  of  the  company,  who  had  been  initiated,  that  they 
would  lend  him  the  divine  sacrament'"  (which  they  carried 
about  with  them — according  to  the  superstitious  habit  of 
the  day — as  an  amulet  or  charm),  " 'not  to  feed  his  curiosity 
by  peeping  inside  the  bag,  but  to  obtain  the  benefit  of  his 
faith,  for  he  wrapped  up  the  mysteries  in  his  handkerchief, 
and  then  tying  it  about  his  neck  threw  himself  into  the  sea ; 
never  troubling  himself  to  look  out  for  a  plank,  which  might 
help  him  to  swim,  since  he  wanted  nothing  more  than 
the  arms  of  his  faith;  nor  did  his  hopes  fail  him,  for  he 
was  the  first  of  the  company  who  got  safe  to  the  shore.'"39 
Optatus  relates  that  certain  members  of  the  Donatist  sect 
once  cast  the  Eucharistic  bread  of  the  Catholics  to  the  dogs 
— which  promptly  went  mad  and  bit  their  masters.40 
Sozomen  tells  that  a  woman  who  had  received  some  Eu- 


52  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

charistic  bread  of  the  Macedonians,  found  it  turned  to  a 
stone.40  Gregory  the  Great  narrates  that  a  young  monk 
who  had  gone  to  visit  his  parents  without  permission,  died 
on  the  day  of  his  return,  but  could  not  rest  quiet  in  his 
grave  until  Benedict,  his  superior,  had  the  host  laid  on  it.40 
In  the  time  of  Justinian,  we  are  told,  when  it  was  the  cus- 
tom to  distribute  the  Eucharistic  bread  left  over  after  the 
communion  to  the  children,  it  happened  once  that  a  Jewish 
child  received  and  ate  a  fragment  of  it.  The  enraged 
father  cast  the  child  into  a  furnace,  but  it  was  miraculously 
preserved  from  harm.40  Gregory  of  Tours  tells  of  a  deacon 
of  unholy  life,  who,  carrying  one  day  the  Eucharist  into  a 
church,  had  the  bread  fly  of  itself  out  of  his  hand  and 
place  itself  on  the  altar.40  According  to  the  same  writer 
the  host  on  one  occasion  shed  blood  when  broken.40  A 
bishop  named  Marsius  is  related  to  have  let  his  portion  of 
the  Eucharistic  bread,  received  from  the  hands  of  the  ad- 
ministrator, fall  into  the  folds  of  his  robe  because  he  did 
not  wish  to  break  his  fast.  It  at  once  turned  into  a  ser- 
pent, and  wrapped  itself  about  his  waist  whence  it  could  be 
dislodged  only  by  a  night  of  prayer  for  him  on  the  part  of 
the  administrator.40  This  is  matched  by  the  miracle  of 
Bolsena,  which  Raphael  has  rendered  famous.  A  priest 
saying  the  mass — it  is  dated  1264 — let  a  drop  of  wine  fall 
on  his  corporal,  and  doubled  up  the  garment  upon  it.  It 
was  found  to  have  left  the  impression  of  the  wafer  in  blood 
on  every  fold  which  touched  it.41 

We  have  seen  Augustine  constrained  to  allow  the  prin- 
ciple that  miracles  alleged  in  the  interests  of  false  doctrines 
are  self-condemned ;  that  no  miracle  can  be  accepted  against 
the  truth,  but  is  at  once  to  be  set  aside  if  presented  in  the 
interests  of  error.  The  principle  is  a  scriptural  one42  and 
has  repeatedly  been  rationally  validated.  It  is  so  validated, 
for  example,  in  a  solid  argument  by  Lyman  H.  Atwater, 
speaking  immediately  of  spiritualism.43  "A  corrupt  doc- 
trine," says  he  suggestively,  "destroys  a  pretended  mir- 


DOCTRINE  AND   MIRACLES  53 

acle  just  as  strong  counter  circumstantial  evidence  would 
invalidate  the  testimony  of  a  single  witness."  A  good 
deal  of  confusion  seems  to  be  abroad  on  this  matter.  An 
impression  appears  to  exist  that  the  proper  evidence  of 
truth — or  at  least  of  religious  truth — is  miracle,  and  that 
therefore  there  can  be  no  decisive  criterion  of  religious  truth 
offered  for  our  acceptance  except  miracles  wrought  in  sup- 
port of  it.  It  is  at  least  very  commonly  supposed  that 
we  are  bound  to  examine  carefully  into  the  pretensions  of 
any  alleged  miracle  produced  in  support  of  any  proposi- 
tions whatever,  however  intrinsically  absurd ;  and,  if  these 
alleged  miracles  cannot  be  at  once  decisively  invalidated, 
we  are  bound  to  accept  as  true  the  propositions  in  support 
of  which  they  are  alleged.  No  proposition  clearly  per- 
ceived to  be  false,  however,  can  possibly  be  validated  to  us 
by  any  miracle  whatever ;  and  the  perception  of  the  propo- 
sition as  clearly  false  relieves  us  at  once  from  the  duty  of 
examining  into  the  miraculous  character  of  its  alleged  sup- 
port and  invalidates  any  claim  which  that  support  can 
put  in  to  miraculous  character — prior  to  all  investigation. 
A  matter  so  clear  could  not  be  missed,  of  course,  by  Augus- 
tine, and  we  have  his  support,  accordingly,  in  pointing  out 
that  the  connection  of  alleged  miracles  with  erroneous  doc- 
trines invalidates  their  claim  to  be  genuine  works  of  God. 
We  must  not  imagine,  however,  that  ecclesiastical  mir- 
acles are  distinguished  from  the  biblical  miracles  by  noth- 
ing except  the  nature  of  the  doctrines  in  connection  with 
which  they  are  alleged  to  be  wrought.  They  differ  from 
them  also,  fundamentally,  in  character.  This  difference  is 
not  denied.  J.  H.  Newman,  for  example,  describes  it 
thus:44  "Ecclesiastical  miracles,  that  is,  miracles  posterior 
to  the  Apostolic  age,  are,  on  the  whole,  different  in  object, 
character,  and  evidence  from  those  of  Scripture  on  the 
whole."  At  a  subsequent  point,  he  enlarges  on  this.45 
"The  Scripture  miracles,"  says  he,  "are  for  the  most  part 
evidence  of  a  Divine  Revelation,  and  that  for  the  sake  of 


54  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

those  who  have  been  instructed  in  it,  and  in  order  to  the 
instruction  of  multitudes;  but  the  miracles  which  follow 
have  sometimes  no  discoverable  or  direct  object,  or  but  a 
slight  object;  they  happen  for  the  sake  of  individuals  and 
of  those  who  are  already  Christians,  or  for  purposes  already 
effected,  as  far  as  we  can  judge,  by  the  miracles  of  Scrip- 
ture. .  .  .  The  miracles  of  Scripture  are,  on  the  whole, 
grave,  simple,  majestic ;  those  of  ecclesiastical  history  often 
partake  of  what  may  be  called  a  romantic  character,  and 
of  that  wildness  and  inequality  which  enters  into  the  no- 
tion of  romance.  The  miracles  of  Scripture  are  undeniably 
beyond  nature;  those  of  ecclesiastical  history  are  often 
scarcely  more  than  extraordinary  accidents  or  coincidences, 
or  events  which  seem  to  betray  exaggerations  or  errors  in 
the  statement."  In  a  word,46  "Scripture  is  to  us  a  Garden 
of  Eden,  and  its  creations  are  beautiful  as  well  as  'very 
good ' ;  but  when  we  pass  from  the  Apostolical  to  the  fol- 
lowing ages,  it  is  as  if  we  left  the  choicest  valleys  of  the 
earth,  the  quietest  and  most  harmonious  scenery,  and  the 
most  cultivated  soil,  for  the  luxuriant  wilderness  of  Africa 
or  Asia,  the  natural  home  or  kingdom  of  brute  nature,  unin- 
fluenced by  man."  Newman  labors  to  show  that  this  is 
only  a  general  contrast;  that  there  are  some  miracles  in 
Scripture  which,  taken  by  themselves,  would  find  their 
place  in  the  lower  class;  and  some  in  ecclesiastical  history 
which  rise  to  the  higher  class;  and  in  later  life  he  would 
somewhat  modify  his  statement  of  the  contrast.  But  the 
admission  that  the  contrast  exists  is  unavoidable;  some 
measure  of  recognition  of  it  runs,  as  we  have  seen,  through 
the  literature  of  all  the  Christian  ages,  and  it  is  big  with 
significance. 

I  have  frequently  quoted  in  the  course  of  this  lecture 
Newman's  essay  on  TJie  Miracles  of  Ecclesiastical  History 
compared  with  those  of  Scripture,  as  regards  tlieir  nature, 
credibility  and  evidence.  Indeed,  I  have  purposely  drawn 
a  good  deal  of  my  material  from  it.     Perhaps  I  owe  you 


NEWMAN  ON   MIRACLES  55 

some  account  of  this  book,  which  is,  perhaps,  an  even  more 
famous  book  than  Middleton's,  formerly  described  to  you. 
Newman  had  written  in  1825-6  a  paper  on  The  Miracles  of 
Scripture,  compared  with  those  reported  elsewhere,  as  regards 
their  nature,  credibility,  and  evidence.  That  was  in  his  Prot- 
estant days,  and  in  this  paper  he  takes  sufficiently  strong 
ground  against  the  genuineness  of  ecclesiastical  miracles. 
Then  came  the  Oxford  movement  of  which  he  was  the 
leader;  and  afterward  his  drift  Romeward.  As  this  drift 
was  reaching  its  issue  in  his  passing  into  the  Roman  church 
— in  1842-3 — he  wrote  the  subtle  plea  for  the  genuineness 
of  ecclesiastical  miracles  with  which  we  are  now  concerned, 
primarily  as  a  preface  for  a  translation  of  a  portion  of 
Fleury's  Ecclesiastical  History}1  How  well  pleased  he,  as 
a  Catholic,  was  with  his  performance  is  evidenced  by  his 
republication  of  the  two  papers  together,  without  substan- 
tial alteration,  in  repeated  editions  after  his  perversion. 

The  essay  now  claiming  our  attention  is  probably  the 
most  specious  plea  for  the  credibility  and  reality  of  the 
whole  mass  of  ecclesiastical  miracles  ever  penned.  I  say 
the  whole  mass,  although  Newman,  with  great  apparent 
candor,  admits  that  there  is  to  be  found  among  them  every 
variety  of  miracle,  of  every  degree  of  intrinsic  credibility 
or  incredibility,  and  supported  by  every  degree  of  evidence 
or  no-evidence.  For,  after  he  has,  under  the  cover  of  this 
candor,  concentrated  attention  upon  what  seem  to  him  the 
particular  miracles  most  deserving  to  be  true,  and  supported 
by  the  most  direct  and  weighty  evidence,  he  subtly  suggests 
that,  on  their  basis,  many  more  in  themselves  doubtful  or 
distasteful  may  be  allowed,  that  insufficiency  of  proof  is 
not  the  same  as  disproof,  and  that  very  many  things  must 
be  admitted  by  us  to  be  very  likely  true  for  the  truth  of 
which  we  have  no  evidence  at  all — inasmuch  as  we  must 
distinguish  sharply  between  the  fact  and  the  proof  of  the 
fact,  and  must  be  prepared  to  admit  that  failure  of  the 
latter  does  not  carry  with  it  the  rejection  of  the  former. 


56  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

The  disposition  of  matter  in  this  famous  essay  is  as  fol- 
lows. First,  the  antecedent  probability  of  the  ecclesiastical 
miracles  is  estimated;  then,  their  internal  character  is  in- 
vestigated; then,  the  argument  in  their  behalf  in  general 
is  presented;  and  finally  the  major  portion  of  the  essay  is 
given  to  a  detailed  attempt  to  demonstrate  that  a  few 
selected  miracles  of  greater  intrinsic  likelihood  and  better 
attestation  than  the  mass,  actually  happened — such  as 
those  of  the  thundering  legion,  the  changing  of  water  into 
oil  by  Narcissus,  the  alteration  of  the  course  of  the  Lycus 
by  Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  the  appearance  of  the  cross  to 
Constantine,  the  discovery  of  the  cross  by  Helena,  the 
death  of  Arius,  the  fiery  eruption  which  stopped  Julian's 
attempt  to  build  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  the  cure  of 
blindness  by  relics,  and  the  speech  of  the  African  confessors 
without  tongues.  Everywhere  the  reader  is  charmed  by 
the  delightful  style,  and  everywhere  he  is  led  on  by  the 
hand  of  a  master-reasoner  bending  facts  and  reason  alike 
to  follow  the  path  appointed  for  them. 

The  opening  argument  runs  as  follows.  Although  there 
may  be  a  certain  antecedent  probability  against  this  or  that 
particular  miracle,  there  can  be  no  presumption  whatever 
against  miracles  generally  after  the  Apostles,  because  in- 
spiration has  borne  the  brunt  of  any  such  antecedent  preju- 
dice, and,  in  establishing  the  certainty  of  the  supernatural 
histories  of  the  Scriptures,  has  disproved  their  impossi- 
bility in  the  abstract.  The  skilfulness  of  this  is  beyond 
praise.  By  keeping  his  reader's  attention  fixed  on  the 
possibility  of  miracles  in  the  abstract,  Newman  quite  dis- 
tracts it  from  the  decisive  question  in  the  case — whether 
the  scriptural  histories  of  miracles  do  not  themselves  raise 
a  presumption  against  the  alleged  miracles  succeeding 
them.  At  a  later  point,  to  be  sure,  this  question  is  raised. 
But  only  in  a  special  form,  namely,  whether  the  difference 
between  the  biblical  and  ecclesiastical  miracles  is  not  so 
great  that  the  latter  become  improbable  if  the  former  be 


MIRACLES  AND   MIRACLES  57 

admitted.  A  difference  is  allowed ;  but  its  implications  are 
avoided  by  an  appeal  to  the  analogy  of  nature,  in  professed 
imitation  of  Joseph  Butler.  It  is  argued,  namely,  that  the 
case  is  very  much  like  that  of  a  man  familiar  only  with  the 
noblest  animals,  which  have  been  subjected  to  human  do- 
minion, who  is  suddenly  introduced  into  a  zoological  garden 
and,  perceiving  the  great  variety  of  animal  nature,  the 
hideousness  and  uselessness  of  much  of  it,  is  led  to  deny 
that  all  could  have  come  from  God.  Thus,  says  Newman, 
one  accustomed  to  only  the  noble  miracles  of  Scripture  may 
be  pardoned  some  doubt  when  introduced  into  the  jungles 
of  ecclesiastical  history.  But  doubt  here  too  should  pass 
away  with  increasing  knowledge  and  a  broadening  outlook 
on  the  divine  power  and  works.  This  is  the  argument  of 
the  second  section,  on  the  "internal  character  of  ecclesi- 
astical miracles."  But  the  real  grounds  of  the  presumption 
against  ecclesiastical  miracles  are  never  adverted  to — 
namely  that  Scripture  represents  miracles  to  be  attached 
to  the  Apostles,  the  vehicles  of  revelation,  as  their  signs, 
and  thus  raises  an  antecedent  presumption  against  any 
miracles  having  occurred  after  their  age ;  that  on  the  testi- 
mony of  history  miracles  accordingly  ceased  with  the 
Apostolic  age,  and  only  after  an  interval  are  heard  of  again ; 
that,  when  heard  of  again,  they  are  the  apparent  progeny 
of  the  apocryphal  miracles  of  the  Gnostic  and  Ebionitic 
romances  of  the  second  and  third  centuries  and  not  of  the 
miracles  of  the  New  Testament ;  that  they  accordingly  differ 
not  only  toto  ccelo  from  the  miracles  of  the  Scripture  in 
kind,  but  are  often  wrought  in  support  of  superstitions 
not  only  foreign  to  the  religion  of  the  Bible,  but  in  contra- 
diction to  it.  Of  all  this  Newman  says  not  a  word,  and  he 
manages  to  carry  the  reader  so  along  with  him  by  an  ex- 
hibition of  candor  when  candor  is  harmless  that  there  is 
danger  of  its  being  forgotten  that  of  all  this  anything  ought 
to  be  said. 
The  section  on  the  state  of  the  argument  begins  polemi- 


58  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

cally,  but  soon  returns  to  the  main  point,  namely  that  the 
case  is  to  be  settled  on  the  ground  of  antecedent  probability. 
This  is  then  at  once  resolved  into  the  question  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  church.  Newman,  it  is  true,  expresses  himself 
as  if  what  he  was  handling  was  the  reality  of  Christianity. 
He  warns  us  that  scepticism  here  may,  nay,  must,  be  at 
bottom  "disbelief  in  the  grace  committed  to  the  church." 
He  suggests  that  those  who  realize  that  the  bodies  of  the 
saints  in  life  are  the  Temples  of  the  Highest  ought  not  to 
feel  offense  if  miracles  are  wrought  by  these  bodies  after 
death.  Finally,  he  enunciates  the  proposition  that  "it 
may  be  taken  as  a  general  truth  that,  where  there  is  an 
admission  of  Catholic  doctrines,  there  no  prejudice  will 
exist  against  ecclesiastical  miracles;  while  those  who  dis- 
believe in  the  existence  among  us  of  the  hidden  Power  will 
eagerly  avail  themselves  of  every  plea  for  explaining  away 
its  open  manifestation."  48 

This  again  is  very  skilfully  put.  But  there  is  no  reason 
why  the  judgment  expressed  should  not  be  concurred  in 
without  debate.  A  Catholic,  believing  first  in  the  divinity 
of  the  church  as  the  organ  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  which  He 
is  made  a  deposit  for  the  whole  world,  and  from  which 
alone  He  can  be  obtained ;  and  believing,  next,  in  the  truth 
of  all  the  distinctive  teachings  of  this  church,  as  to  monas- 
ticism  and  asceticism,  relics  and  saints,  transubstantiation, 
and  the  like,  in  honor  of  which  the  alleged  miracles  are 
performed — will  naturally  be  predisposed  to  believe  these 
miracles  real.  A  Protestant,  believing  none  of  these  things, 
but  looking  upon  them  as  corruptions  of  the  Gospel,  will 
as  naturally  be  predisposed  to  believe  them  spurious.  In 
this  sense,  every  Protestant  must  deny  the  existence  of 
"the  hidden  Power  among  us"  which  Newman  affirms, 
and  hence  cannot  either  expect  or  allow  "open  manifesta- 
tions" of  it.  We  believe  in  a  wonder-working  God;  but 
not  in  a  wonder-working  church.  Thus  the  effect  of  New- 
man's argument,  when  once  it  is  probed,  is  to  uncover  the 


ANTECEDENT  PRESUMPTIONS  59 

root  of  the  matter,  and  to  make  clear  just  what  the  pre- 
sumption against  ecclesiastical  miracles  is.  It  matters  not 
that  he  proceeds  to  cite  the  last  twelve  verses  of  Mark  and 
to  build  an  argument  upon  the  promise  included  in  them. 
The  spuriousness  of  the  passage  evacuates  the  argument. 
It  is  a  meaningless  excrescence,  however,  upon  his  argu- 
ment in  any  case.  That  ultimately  comes  merely  to  the 
historical  causa  finita  est:  ecclesia  locuta  est. 

The  examination  of  the  evidence  for  selected  miracles 
which  is  presented  at  the  end  of  the  volume  is  an  interest- 
ing piece  of  work,  but  is  unconvincing  for  the  main  matter. 
That  the  conclusion  in  each  case  lacks  cogency  may  be 
shown  in  one  way  or  another ;  but  it  is  not  necessary  to  do 
this.  Newman  himself  allows  that  the  general  conclusion 
reached  rests  on  the  antecedent  presumption ;  and  that  that 
depends  on  our  attitude  to  Roman  doctrine.  For  its  in- 
herent interest,  however,  we  may  glance  for  a  moment  at 
the  last,  and  perhaps  the  most  striking,  of  the  instances  of 
miracles  the  evidence  for  which  Newman  treats  fully.  It 
is  the  miracle  of  the  continued  speech  of  the  African  con- 
fessors deprived  of  their  tongues  by  the  cruelty  of  Hunneric 
in  484.  The  evidence,  which  is  especially  profuse  and  good, 
is  detailed  with  great  skill.  We  really  cannot  doubt  the 
underlying  fact.  The  tongues  of  these  martyrs  were  cut 
out,  cut  out  by  the  roots;  and  one  or  more  of  them  were 
known  at  Constantinople  as  having  still  the  power  to  speak. 
The  miracle  is  inferred.  The  inference,  however,  is  not 
stringent.  It  curiously  emerges  as  a  physiological  fact  that 
a  man  with  half  a  tongue  cannot  speak,  but  a  man  with 
no  tongue  at  all  can.  Newman  knew  this  fact.  Middle- 
ton  had  adduced  two  French  cases — one  of  a  girl  born 
without  a  tongue  who  yet  talked  distinctly  and  easily,  the 
other  of  a  boy  who  had  lost  his  tongue  without  losing  his 
faculty  of  speech.  Newman  judged  that  these  instances 
left  his  miracle  untouched.  But  other  evidence  was  soon 
adduced.     It  happens  that  the  excision  of  the  tongue  is  a 


60  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

form  of  punishment  repeatedly  inflicted  in  the  East,  and 
a  body  of  evidence  has  grown  up  there  which  puts  it  be- 
yond cavil  that  excision  of  the  tongue,  if  thoroughly  done, 
does  not  destroy  the  power  of  speech.  In  his  later  editions, 
while  recording  this  evidence  in  an  appendix,  Newman  is 
still  unable  frankly  to  allow  that  this  is  what  happened  to 
the  African  martyrs.49 

Perhaps  I  ought  to  mention  before  leaving  Newman's 
book  that  it  has  been  subjected  to  a  very  thorough  examina- 
tion, and  has  been  given  a  very  complete  refutation  by 
Edwin  A.  Abbott,  in  a  volume  devoted  wholly  to  it,  pub- 
lished under  the  significant  title  of  Philomythus.50  And, 
having  mentioned  this  book,  perhaps  I  ought  to  say  further 
that  the  same  writer  has  also  published  a  very  extended 
discussion  of  the  miracles  of  Thomas  a  Becket,51  under  the 
impression  that  some  sort  of  a  parallel  might  be  drawn 
between  them  and  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament, 
to  the  disadvantage  of  the  acknowledgment  of  the  truly 
miraculous  character  of  the  latter.  Nothing  further  need 
be  said  of  this  than  what  has  been  briefly  said  by  A.  G. 
Headlam  in  the  course  of  a  discussion  of  miracles,  which 
he  read  at  the  Church  Congress  at  Middlesbrough  (1912).52 
"Reference  has  been  made  to  miracles  of  St.  Thomas  of 
Canterbury,"  he  says,  "and  it  is  maintained  that  those 
miracles  are  supported  by  as  good  evidence  as  the  Gospel 
narratives,  and  that  they  represent  just  the  same  strong 
ethical  character  that  our  Lord's  work  did.  I  do  not 
think  that  any  one  who  makes  assertions  of  this  sort  can 
have  looked  at  the  evidence  for  a  moment.  We  have  very 
full  accounts  of  the  life  of  Thomas  a  Becket,  and  we  have 
many  letters  written  by  him.  In  none  whatever  of  the 
early  narratives  is  there  any  reference  to  miracles  per- 
formed in  his  lifetime.  Neither  he  himself  nor  his  contem- 
poraries claimed  that  he  could  work  miracles.  The  stories 
of  miraculous  happenings  are  entirely  confined  to  the  mir- 
acles believed  to  have  been  worked  by  his  dead  body  after 


HEATHEN  ORIGINS  61 

his  death,  and  these  narratives  are  exactly  of  the  same  char- 
acter as  those  recorded  at  Lourdes,  for  example,  at  the 
present  day.  Many  of  them  represent  answers  to  prayers 
which  were  offered  up  in  different  parts  of  the  world  in  the 
name  of  St.  Thomas,  many  of  them  are  trivial,  and  some 
repellent.  Some  doubtless  represent  real  cures,  which 
were  worked  among  those  who  went  on  a  pilgrimage,  just 
as  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  real  cures  are  experienced 
by  those  who  go  to  Lourdes.  What  their  character  may 
be  we  need  not  discuss  at  this  moment,  but  the  whole  tone 
of  the  narrative  represents  something  quite  different  from 
anything  that  we  experience  when  reading  the  story  of 
the  Gospel." 

We  return  now  to  the  main  question:  What  are  we  to 
think  of  these  miracles?  There  is  but  one  historical  an- 
swer which  can  be  given.  They  represent  an  infusion  of 
heathen  modes  of  thought  into  the  church.  If  we  wish  to 
trace  this  heathen  infusion  along  the  line  of  literary  devel- 
opment, we  must  take  our  start  from  those  Apocryphal  Acts 
of  Encratite  tendency  which,  in  a  former  lecture,  we  had 
occasion  to  point  to  as  naturalizing  the  heathen  wonder- 
tales — then  a  fashionable  literary  form — in  the  church. 
Once  naturalized  in  the  church,  these  Christian  wonder- 
tales  developed  along  the  line  of  the  church's  own  develop- 
ment. As  time  went  on,  E.  von  Dobschiitz  explains,  the 
church  drew  ever  closer  to  the  Encratite  ideals  which  were 
glorified  in  the  Apocryphal  Acts,  and  it  was  this  which  gave 
their  tendency  to  the  new  Christian  romances  which  began 
to  multiply  in  the  later  fourth  century,  and  are  represented 
to  us  especially  by  Athanasius'  Life  of  Antony,  and  Jerome's 
Lives  of  Paul,  Eilarion,  and  Malchus.  "Whether  there  is 
any  historical  kernel  in  them  or  not,"  remarks  Von  Dob- 
schiitz,53 "they  are  exactly  like  the  older  Christian  ro- 
mances, described  already,  in  their  fundamental  traits — • 
loose  structure,  miraculousness  and  asceticism."  The  state 
of  the  case  is  fairly  brought  before  us  by  R.  Reitzen- 


62  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

stein,  when,  after  expounding  at  length  the  relevant  details, 
he  states  his  conclusion  thus:54  "I  think  I  may  now  ven- 
ture to  say  that  the  prophet  and  philosopher  aretalogies 
supplied  the  literary  model  for  the  Christian  Acts  of  the 
Apostles.  .  .  .  But  in  order  properly  to  feel  the  extent 
and  influence  of  this  literature,  we  must  follow  the  Chris- 
tian aretalogy  a  step  further.  .  .  .  This  new  literature 
arose,  as  is  well  known,  when,  after  the  victory  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  interest  of  the  community  shifted  from  the 
portrait  of  the  ideal  missionary  to  the  strange  figures  of 
the  hermits  and  monks.  For  us  there  come  especially  into 
consideration  Athanasius'  Life  of  Antony,  and  the  two  great 
collections  of  the  Historia  Monachorum  and  the  Eistoria 
Lausiaca;  only  in  the  second  rank,  the  Lives  of  Paul  and 
Hilar  ion  by  Jerome." 

It  has  been  much  disputed  of  late,  whether  the  work 
which  stands  at  the  head  of  this  literature,  Athanasius' 
Life  of  Antony,  is  really  Athanasius'  or  is  a  work  of  fiction. 
Perhaps  we  do  not  need  to  treat  the  alternative  as  absolute. 
The  book  can  scarcely  be  denied  to  Athanasius,  and  if  we 
conceive  it  as  a  work  of  fiction,  it  ceases  to  be  wholly  un- 
worthy of  him.  "In  spite  of  its  bad  Greek — Athanasius 
was  anything  but  a  master  of  form" — writes  Reitzenstein,55 
"the  book  belongs  distinctly  to  the  category  of  'great  liter- 
ature,' and  its  appearance  may  be  spoken  of  as  an  event 
of  world-historical  importance."  T.  R.  Glover,  who  con- 
siders that  it  has  been  demonstrated  that  the  book  is  a 
"work  of  fiction,"  points  out56  that  "it  was  fiction  as 
Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  was  fiction,"  and  wrought  even  more 
powerfully;  "of  all  the  books  of  the  fourth  century  it  had 
the  most  immediate  and  wide-spread  influence,  which, 
though  outgrown  by  us,  lasted  on  to  the  Renaissance." 
How  great  the  misfortune  was  that  the  ascetic  ideal  should 
be  commended  to  the  world-weary  people  of  God  in  this 
age  of  dying  heathenism  through  the  medium  of  a  romance 
of  such  undeniable  power,  the  event  only  too  sadly  showed. 


MONKISH  BELLETRISTIC  63 

The  elevation  of  the  work  above  its  successive  imitators — 
Jerome's  Paul  and  Hilarion  and  Malchus,  Sulpitius  Seve- 
rus's  Martin  and  beyond — is  immense.  Reitzenstein  sug- 
gests it  to  us57  in  the  contrast  he  draws  between  it  and  Je- 
rome's Life  of  Hilarion.  It  is  Jerome's  obvious  purpose  to 
outvie  Athanasius,  and  he  does  it  with  vigor.  "The  dif- 
ference between  the  two  works,"  says  Reitzenstein,  "is 
certainly  very  great.  Athanasius  handled  the  miraculous 
narrative  as  a  concession  to  his  public,  laid  all  the  stress  on 
the  discipline  of  the  monk,  and  precisely  thus  raised  the 
work  to  a  value  which  must  be  felt  even  by  one  who  is 
filled  with  horror  by  this  pedagogically  presented  union 
of  the  fervor  of  Christian  faith  and  Egyptian  superstition. 
Jerome  has  retrenched  even  the  preaching  and  the  exhor- 
tation which  form  the  religious  kernel  of  the  heathen  as 
well  as  the  Christian  aretalogy ;  the  miracle  narrative  is  its 
own  end;  it  is  'great  history'  which  he  is  giving,  and  he 
presents  it  by  this  means."  58 

Thus  a  new  literature  sprang  up  synchronously  with 
monasticism — a  monkish  belletristic,  as  A.  Harnack  calls 
it.59  "Feuilletonists  in  monks'  clothing  made  romances 
and  novels  out  of  the  real  and  invented  experiences  of  the 
penitents,  and  the  ancient  world  delighted  itself  with  this 
preciosity  of  renunciation."  The  miraculous  was  in  this 
literature  a  matter  of  course ;  and  the  ever-swelling  accounts 
of  miracles  in  that  age  of  excited  superstition  transferred 
themselves  with  immense  facility  to  life.  "The  martyr- 
legend,"  says  H.  Gunter  strikingly,  at  the  opening  of  his 
Legend-Studies,60  "is  older  than  the  Christian  martyrs — ■ 
of  course  with  a  grain  of  salt — in  its  presuppositions";  and 
the  same  is  true  of  the  monk-legends.  Gunter  illustrates 
what  the  martyr-legend  did  with  Bible  passages  by  bidding 
us  observe  what  is  done  in  the  Acts  of  Peter  and  Andrew 
with  Christ's  saying  about  the  camel  passing  through  the 
eye  of  a  needle.  This  aretalogist  is  so  zealous  for  the 
saving  of  rich  men  that  he  makes  a  camel  actually  pass 


64  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

repeatedly  through  the  eye  of  the  smallest  needle  that  can 
be  found,  before  our  very  eyes.61  There  is  nothing  too 
hard  for  the  monkish  legend.  A  veil  of  miracle  settles 
down  over  everything,  covering  up  all  historical  and  indi- 
vidual traits. 

An  admirable  summary  of  what  took  place  in  the  church 
itself,  parallel  with  this  literary  development,  is  drawn  up 
by  Robert  Rainy  in  the  course  of  his  general  description 
of  the  effects  of  the  introduction  of  monasticism  into  the 
church.  "The  stimulus  which  was  applied  to  the  fancy 
and  to  nervous  tendencies,"  says  he,62  "is  revealed  also  by 
the  extraordinary  harvest  of  visions,  demoniacal  assaults, 
and  miracles  which  followed  in  its  wake.  The  occurrence 
of  some  marvels  had  been  associated  all  along  with  Chris- 
tian history,  in  times  of  persecution  especially,  and  in  other 
cases  of  great  trial.  But  both  in  type  and  in  number  these 
had  hitherto  occupied  a  comparatively  modest  place,  and 
the  Christian  feeling  had  been  that  miracles  comparable 
to  the  Gospel  miracles  had  for  good  reasons  passed  away. 
But  from  Antony  onward  the  miraculous  element  increases, 
and  by  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  it  had  overflowed  the 
world.  Asceticism  was  one  cause;  another,  which  operated 
in  the  same  way,  was  the  mood  of  mind  now  prevailing  in 
regard  to  the  relics  of  the  saints.  Illustrations  of  the  first 
may  be  found  abundantly  in  Sulpitius  Severus.  For  the 
effect  of  relics,  note  how  Augustine,  who  in  earlier  days 
recognized  the  comparative  absence  of  the  miraculous  from 
Christian  experience,  in  later  life  qualified  and  virtually 
retracts  the  statement.  For  in  the  meantime  not  only  had 
asceticism  begun  to  bear  fruits,  but  the  relics  of  St.  Stephen 
had  come  into  Africa,  and  miracles  everywhere  followed  in 
their  train;  and  such  miracles!" 

When  we  say  that  this  great  harvest  of  miracles  thus 
produced  in  Christian  soil,  from  the  late  fourth  century 
on,  in  connection  with  the  rise  of  the  monastic  movement, 
was  a  transplantation  from  heathendom,  we  do  not  mean 


CHRISTIAN   COLORING  65 

to  imply  that  the  particular  miracles  thus  produced  owed 
nothing  to  the  Christian  soil  in  which  they  grew.  As  they 
were  the  products  of  human  hopes  and  fears,  and  humanity 
is  fundamentally  the  same  in  all  ages  and  under  all  skies, 
miracle-stories  of  this  kind  present  a  general  family  like- 
ness in  all  times  and  in  all  religious  environments.  But 
they  are,  of  course,  colored  also  by  the  special  modes  of 
thinking  and  feeling  of  the  peoples  among  whom  they  sev- 
erally rise,  and  Christian  miracle-stories  will,  therefore, 
inevitably  be  Christian  in  their  ground  tone.  C.  F.  Arnold 
describes  very  strikingly  the  difference  in  character  and 
underlying  postulates  between  the  miraculous  stories  which 
grew  up  among  the  Christian  population  of  southern  Gaul 
and  those  of  the  heathen  which  they  supplanted.  He  is 
speaking  of  the  time  of  Caesarius  of  Aries,  in  the  first  half 
of  the  sixth  century.  "Besides  marvels  of  healing,"  he 
says,63  "many  other  marvels  are  also  related.  It  is  easy 
to  say  that  mediaeval  barbarism  reveals  itself  in  such  rec- 
ords. But  we  must  not  forget  that  not  only  are  the  books 
of  Apuleius  filled  with  the  wildest  superstitions,  but  even 
such  a  highly  educated  heathen  as  the  younger  Pliny  be- 
lieved in  the  silliest  ghost-stories.  We  not  only  perceive  in 
this  a  reflection  of  folk-belief  among  the  educated,  but  we 
are  especially  struck  with  the  naturalism,  the  passive  char- 
acter of  heathen  religiousness.  Christian  superstition  as 
it  meets  us  in  the  environment  of  Caesarius,  always  differs 
from  the  heathen  by  its  double  ideal  background.  First, 
we  are  met  in  it  with  a  childlike  form  of  vital  faith  in  Provi- 
dence, which,  in  these  days  of  practical  pessimism  and 
materialism,  we  might  almost  envy  that  time.  Secondly, 
there  speaks  to  us  in  it,  not  fear  in  the  presence  of  the  blind 
forces  of  nature,  as  in  heathen  superstition,  but  a  certain 
confidence  in  the  victory  of  the  spirit  over  nature.  From 
a  practical  point  of  view  this  superstition  wrought  great 
evil,  because  it  hindered  fighting  against  physical  ills  with 
the  weapon  with  which  they  should  have  been  fought — that 


66  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

is,  by  God- trusting  labor.  Sickness  was  fought  as  if  it 
had  been  sin,  with  prayer;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  sin 
was  fought  as  if  it  had  been  sickness,  with  diligence  in 
ascetic  practices."  Even  a  man  so  great  and  wise  as 
Caesarius  was  not  able  to  escape  this  deeply  rooted  super- 
stition. He  shared,  as  Arnold  phrases  it,  the  fundamental 
error  which,  from  a  theological  standpoint,  underlay  this 
whole  miracle  thirst:  the  error  of  failing  to  distinguish  be- 
tween the  epoch  of  the  creation  of  salvation  and  that  of 
its  appropriation.  But  Caesarius  was  wise  enough,  while 
not  denying  that  miracles  still  happened,  to  minimize  their 
importance,  and  to  point  rather  to  spiritual  wonders  as  the 
things  to  be  sought.64  "What  is  the  example  of  Christ 
that  we  are  to  follow?"  he  asks.  "Is  it  that  we  should 
raise  the  dead  ?  Is  it  that  we  should  walk  on  the  surface 
of  the  sea?  Not  at  all;  but  that  we  should  be  meek  and 
humble  of  heart,  and  should  love  not  only  our  friends  but 
also  our  enemies." 

As  the  miraculous  stories  of  the  populace  thus  took  on  a 
Christian  complexion  when  the  people  who  produced  them 
became  Christian,  and  became  now  the  vehicles  of  Christian 
faith  in  Providence  and  of  hope  in  the  God  who  is  the 
maker  and  ruler  of  the  whole  earth;  so  they  reflect  also 
the  other  currents  of  popular  belief  and  feeling  of  the  day. 
A  long  series  might  be  gleaned  from  the  mediaeval  rec- 
ords, for  example,  which  reflect  the  ingrained  belief  in 
magic  which  tinged  the  thought  of  an  age  so  little  in- 
structed in  the  true  character  of  the  forces  of  nature,  and 
especially  its  deeply  seated  conception  of  the  essentially 
magical  nature  of  religion  and  its  modes  of  working.  Paul 
Sabatier,  in  his  Life  of  Francis  of  Assist,  cites  a  number  of 
instances  of  the  kind,65  from  which  we  may  cull  the  follow- 
ing. "In  one  case  a  parrot  being  carried  away  by  a  kite 
uttered  the  invocation  dear  to  his  master,  'sancte  Thoma, 
adjuva  me,'  and  was  immediately  rescued.  In  another  a 
merchant  of  Groningen,  having  purloined  an  arm  of  St. 


INFLUENCE  OF   MAGIC  67 

John  the  Baptist,  grew  rich  as  if  by  enchantment,  so  long 
as  he  kept  it  concealed  in  his  house,  but  was  reduced  to 
beggary  so  soon  as,  his  secret  being  discovered,  the  relic 
was  taken  away  from  him  and  placed  in  a  church."  "A 
chronicler  relates  that  the  body  of  St.  Martin  of  Tours  had, 
in  887,  been  secretly  transported  to  some  remote  hiding- 
place  for  fear  of  the  Danish  invasion.  When  the  time 
came  for  bringing  it  home  again,  there  were  in  Touraine 
two  impostors,  men  who,  thanks  to  their  infirmity,  gained 
large  sums  by  begging.  They  were  thrown  into  great 
terror  by  the  tidings  that  the  relics  were  being  brought 
back;  St.  Martin  would  certainly  heal  them  and  take  away 
their  means  of  livelihood !  Their  fears  were  only  too  well 
founded.  They  had  taken  to  flight ;  but  being  too  lame  to 
walk  fast,  they  had  not  yet  crossed  the  frontier  of  Touraine 
when  the  saint  arrived  and  healed  them."  The  mediaeval 
chronicles  are  full  of  such  stories  in  which  the  crass  popular 
thought  of  the  age  expresses  itself.  Folk-tales  are,  after 
all,  folk-tales,  and  must  embody  the  people's  ideas  and 
sentiments. 

One  result  is  that  the  production  of  miraculous  stories 
cannot  be  confined  to  authorized  modes  of  thinking.  If 
the  dominant  ecclesiastical  powers  avail  themselves  of  the 
universal  tendency  to  the  manufacture  of  folk-stories  in 
order  to  commend  their  system,  they  must  expect  to  reckon 
with  entirely  similar  stories  supporting  what  they  look  upon 
as  heresy.  It  accordingly  happens  that  the  heretics  of  all 
ages  are  at  least  as  well  provided  with  supporting  miracles 
as  the  church  itself.  If  Catholics  took  advantage  of  the 
tendency  to  superstition  abroad  in  the  world  to  conquer 
the  unbeliever,  it  was  but  natural  that  "heretics  often  took 
advantage  of  this  thirst  for  the  marvellous  to  dupe  the 
Catholics.  The  Cathari  of  Monceval  made  a  portrait  of 
the  Virgin,  representing  her  as  one-eyed  and  toothless, 
saying  that,  in  His  humility,  Christ  had  chosen  a  very 
ugly  woman  for  mother.     They  had  no  difficulty  in  healing 


68  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

several  cases  of  disease  by  its  means;  the  image  became 
famous,  was  venerated  almost  everywhere,  and  accom- 
plished many  miracles,  until  the  day  when  the  heretics 
divulged  the  deception,  to  the  great  scandal  of  the  faith- 
ful." 66 

A  more  entertaining  incident  of  the  same  kind  occurred 
in  France  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
Jansenists  had  their  miracles,  you  will  understand,  as  well 
as  the  Jesuits.  A  young  Jansenist  cleric,  Francois  de 
Paris,  was  a  particularly  warm  opponent  of  Clement  XIV's 
bull  Unigenitus.  This  did  not  prevent  his  acquiring  a 
great  reputation  for  sanctity.  He  died  in  1727.  Scarcely 
was  this  admirable  man  dead,  says  Mosheim,67  than  an 
immense  crowd  flocked  around  his  body,  kissing  his  feet, 
securing  locks  of  his  hair,  books,  and  clothing  he  had  used, 
and  the  like ;  and  immediately  the  wonder-working  power 
that  was  expected,  appeared.  Neither  the  excitement  nor 
the  miraculous  phenomena  showed  any  sign  of  ceasing 
after  the  burial  of  the  good  abbe.  His  tomb  in  the  church- 
yard of  St.  Medard  became  the  resort  of  the  Jansenist 
convulsionnaires ,  and  the  constant  scene  of  at  once  the  most 
marvellous  and  the  most  fantastic  miracles.  In  a  few 
years  his  grave  had  grown  into  a  famous  shrine  to  which 
men  came  in  crowds  from  all  over  France  to  be  cured  of 
their  diseases,  and  at  which  prophecies,  speaking  with 
tongues,  and  ecstatic  phenomena  of  all  sorts  daily  took 
place.  This  could  not  be  other  than  gravely  displeasing  to 
the  Jesuits,  and  as  the  Jesuits  were  the  power  behind  the 
throne,  it  could  not  be  permitted  to  continue.  To  check 
it  seemed,  however,  difficult  if  not  impossible.  At  last 
the  expedient  was  adopted  of  enclosing  the  tomb  so  that 
none  might  approach  it.  This,  no  doubt,  brought  mira- 
cles at  the  grave  itself  to  an  end,  though  it  could  not 
calm  the  general  excitement.  And  some  wag  turned  the 
tables  on  the  Jesuits  by  chalking  in  great  letters  on  the 


WARNING   GOD   OFF  69 

enclosure,  after  the  manner  of  a  royal  proclamation,  these 
words:68 

De  par  le  Roy,  defence  a.  Dieu 

De  faire  miracle  en  ce  lieu. 

The  whole  incident  of  the  miracles  of  St.  Medard  is  full  of 
instruction  for  us  as  to  the  origin  and  character  of  the 
miracle-working69  which  fills  the  annals  of  the  patristic 
and  mediaeval  church.70 


ROMAN  CATHOLIC  MIRACLES 


ROMAN  CATHOLIC  MIRACLES 

It  would  be  natural  to  suppose  that  the  superstitions 
which  flourished  luxuriantly  in  the  Middle  Ages  would  be 
unable  to  sustain  themselves  in  the  clearer  atmosphere  of 
the  twentieth  century.  "We  shall  have  no  repetition  of 
mediaeval  miracles,"  says  W.  F.  Cobb  with  some  show  of 
conviction,1  "for  the  simple  reason  that  faith  in  God  has 
ousted  credulity  in  nature."  When  we  speak  thus,  how- 
ever, we  are  reckoning  without  the  church  of  Rome.  For 
the  church  of  Rome,  while  existing  in  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, is  not  of  it.  As  Yrjo  Hirn  crisply  puts  it:2  "The 
Catholic  Church  is  a  Middle  Age  which  has  survived  into 
the  twentieth  century."  Precisely  what  happened  to  the 
church  of  Rome  at  that  epoch  in  the  history  of  Christianity 
which  we  call  the  Reformation,  was  that  it  bent  its  back 
sturdily  to  carry  on  with  it  all  the  lumber  which  had  ac- 
cumulated in  the  garrets  and  cellars  of  the  church  through 
a  millennium  and  a  half  of  difficult  living.  It  is  that  part 
of  the  church  which  refused  to  be  reformed ;  which  refused, 
that  is,  to  free  itself  from  the  accretions  which  had  attached 
themselves  to  Christianity  during  its  long  struggle  with 
invading  superstition.  Binding  these  closely  to  its  heart, 
it  has  brought  them  down  with  it  to  the  present  hour.3 
The  church  of  Rome,  accordingly,  can  point  to  a  body  of 
miracles,  wrought  in  our  own  day  and  generation,  as  large 
and  as  striking  as  those  of  any  earlier  period  of  the  church's 
history.  And  when  the  annals  of  the  marvels  of  the 
nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries  come  to  be  collected, 
there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  they  will  compare  unfa- 
vorably in  point  either  of  number  or  marvellousness  with 
those  of  any  of  the  "ages  of  faith"  which  have  preceded 

73 


74  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

them.  This  continuous  manifestation  of  supernatural  pow- 
ers in  its  bosom  constitutes  one  of  the  proudest  boasts 
of  the  church  of  Rome;  by  it,  it  conceives  itself  differen- 
tiated, say,  from  the  Protestants;  and  in  it  it  finds  one  of 
its  chief  credentials  as  the  sole  organ  of  God  Almighty  for 
the  saving  of  the  wicked  world.4 

We  had  occasion  in  a  previous  lecture  to  point  out  that 
this  great  stream  of  miracle-working  which  has  run  thus 
through  the  history  of  the  church  was  not  original  to  the 
church,  but  entered  it  from  without.5  The  channel  which 
we  then  indicated  was  not  the  only  one  through  which  it 
flowed  into  the  church.  It  was  not  even  the  most  direct 
one.  The  fundamental  fact  which  should  be  borne  in  mind 
is  that  Christianity,  in  coming  into  the  world,  came  into 
a  heathen  world.  It  found  itself,  as  it  made  its  way  ever 
more  deeply  into  the  world,  ever  more  deeply  immersed  in 
a  heathen  atmosphere  which  was  heavy  with  miracle.  This 
heathen  atmosphere,  of  course,  penetrated  it  at  every  pore, 
and  affected  its  interpretation  of  existence  in  all  the  hap- 
penings of  daily  life.  It  was  not  merely,  however,  that 
Christians  could  not  be  immune  from  the  infection  of  the 
heathen  modes  of  thought  prevalent  about  them.  It  was 
that  the  church  was  itself  recruited  from  the  heathen  com- 
munity. Christians  were  themselves  but  baptized  heathen, 
and  brought  their  heathen  conceptions  into  the  church 
with  them,  little  changed  in  all  that  was  not  obviously  at 
variance  with  their  Christian  confession.  He  that  was 
unrighteous,  by  the  grace  of  God  did  not  do  unrighteous- 
ness still;  nor  did  he  that  was  filthy  remain  filthy  still. 
But  he  that  was  superstitious  remained  superstitious  still; 
and  he  who  lived  in  a  world  of  marvels  looked  for  and 
found  marvels  happening  all  about  him  still.  In  this  sense 
the  conquering  church  was  conquered  by  the  world  which 
it  conquered. 

It  is  possible  that  we  very  commonly  underestimate  the 
marvellousness  of  the  world  with  which  the  heathen  imagi- 


A  WORLD   OF  MARVELS  75 

nation  surrounded  itself,  crippled  as  it  was  by  its  ignorance 
of  natural  law,  and  inflamed  by  the  most  incredible  super- 
stition. Perhaps  we  equally  underestimate  the  extent  to 
which  this  heathen  view  of  the  world  passed  over  into  the 
church.  Th.  Trede  bids  us  keep  well  in  mind  that  Chris- 
tianity did  not  bring  belief  in  miracles  into  the  world;  it 
found  it  there.  The  whole  religion  of  the  heathen  turned 
on  it;  what  they  kept  their  gods  for  was  just  miracles.  As 
Theodore  Mommsen  puts  it  in  a  single  sentence:6  "The 
Roman  gods  were  in  the  first  instance  instruments  which 
were  employed  for  attaining  very  concrete  earthly  ends" — 
and  then  he  adds,  very  significantly,  "a  point  of  view 
which  appears  not  less  sharply  in  the  saint-worship  of 
present-day  Italy."  "The  power,"  says  Trede,7  "which 
in  the  Roman  Empire  set  the  state  religion  going,  as  well 
as  the  numerous  local,  social,  and  family  cults,  was  belief 
in  miracles.  The  gods,  conceived  as  protecting  beings,  as 
undoubted  powers  in  the  world,  but  as  easily  offended, 
were,  by  the  honor  brought  to  them  in  their  worship,  to 
be  made  and  kept  disposed  to  interpose  in  the  course  of 
nature  for  the  benefit  of  their  worshippers,  in  protecting, 
helping,  succoring,  rescuing  them;  that  is  to  say,  were  to 
work  miracles.  Belief  in  miracles  was  involved  in  belief 
in  the  gods;  only  denial  of  the  gods  could  produce  denial 
of  miracles."  Enlarging  on  the  matter  with  especial  refer- 
ence to  the  third  century,  Trede  continues:8  "In  the  third 
century  religious  belief  was  steeped  in  belief  in  miracles. 
In  their  thinking  and  in  their  believing  men  floated  in  a 
world  of  miracles  like  a  fish  in  water.  The  more  miraculous 
a  story  the  more  readily  it  found  believing  acceptance. 
There  was  no  question  of  criticism,  however  timid;  the 
credulity  of  even  educated  people  reached  an  unheard-of 
measure,  as  well  as  the  number  of  those  who,  as  deceived 
or  deceivers,  no  longer  knew  how  to  distinguish  between 
truth  and  falsehood.  Those  of  the  old  faith  (the  heathen) 
had  no  doubt  of  the  miracles  of  those  of  the  new  faith  (the 


76  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

Christians),  and  vice  versa.  The  whole  population  of  the 
Roman  Empire  was  caught  in  a  gigantic  net  of  superstition, 
the  product  of  the  combined  work  of  East  and  West. 
There  never  was  a  society  so  enlightened  and  so  blase  that 
lived  so  entirely  in  the  world  of  the  supernatural."  And 
he  too  draws  the  parallel  with  our  own  times.  He  adduces 
the  incredible  things  related  by  an  Aristides  and  an  /Elian, 
and  then  adds:9  "Things  just  like  this  are  still  related  .  .  . 
/Elian  and  Aristides  are  still  living,  as  the  miracle-stories 
at  the  famous  places  of  pilgrimage  show.  We  mention 
here  the  miracles  at  Lourdes  and  Pompeii  nuova,  which 
afford  a  very  close  likeness  of  the  doings  of  the  third  cen- 
tury. The  miracles  of  the  nineteenth  century  recall  those 
of  the  third." 

Are  we  then  to  discredit  out  of  hand  the  teeming  mul- 
titudes of  wonders  which  fill  the  annals  of  the  church  despite 
their  attestation  in  detail  by  men  of  probity  and  renown? 
What  credit  can  be  accorded  the  testimony  of  men  even 
of  probity  and  renown  in  matters  in  which  they  show  them- 
selves quite  color-blind?  Take  Augustine,  for  example. 
Adolf  Harnack  declares,10  and  declares  truly,  that  he  was 
incomparably  the  greatest  man  whom  the  Christian  church 
possessed  "between  Paul  the  Apostle  and  Luther  the  Re- 
former." And,  perhaps  more  to  our  present  purpose,  there 
was  nothing  in  which  he  overtopped  his  contemporaries  and 
successors  more  markedly  than  in  his  high  sense  of  the 
sacredness  of  truth  and  his  strict  regard  for  veracity  in 
speech.  In  contrast  with  "the  priests  and  theologians" 
of  his  time,  who,  on  occasion,  "lied  shamelessly,"  Har- 
nack, for  example,  calls  him11  "Augustine  the  truthful," 
and  that  with  full  right.  There  is  no  one  to  whom  we 
could  go  with  more  confidence,  whether  on  the  score  of  his 
ability  or  his  trustworthiness,  than  to  Augustine,  to  assure 
us  of  what  really  happened  in  any  ordinary  matter.  Yet, 
whenever  it  is  a  case  of  marvellous  happenings,  he  shows 
himself  quite  unreliable.    Here  he  is  a  child  of  his  times  and 


AUGUSTINE'S   CREDULITY  77 

cannot  rise  above  them.  What  value  can  be  attached  to 
the  testimony  to  wonders  by  a  man,  however  wise  in  other 
matters  and  however  true-hearted  we  know  him  to  be, 
who  can,  for  example,  tell  us  gravely  that  peacock's  flesh 
is  incorruptible — he  knows  it  because  he  has  tried  it? 
"When  I  first  heard  of  it,"  he  tells  us,12  "it  seemed  to  me 
incredible ;  but  it  happened  at  Carthage  that  a  bird  of  this 
kind  was  cooked  and  served  up  to  me,  and,  taking  a  slice 
of  flesh  from  its  breast,  I  ordered  it  to  be  kept,  and  when 
it  had  been  kept  as  many  days  as  make  any  other  flesh 
offensive,  it  was  produced  and  set  before  me,  and  emitted 
no  unpleasant  odor.  And  after  it  had  been  laid  by  for 
thirty  days  more,  it  was  still  in  the  same  state ;  and  a  year 
after,  the  same  still,  except  that  it  was  a  little  more 
shrivelled  and  drier." 

Take  another  example  which  brings  us  closer  to  our  pres- 
ent theme.  Augustine  tells  us13  that  in  the  neighboring 
town  of  Tullium  there  dwelt  a  countryman  named  Curma, 
who  lay  unconscious  for  some  days,  sick  unto  death,  and 
in  this  state  saw  into  the  other  world,  as  in  a  dream. 
When  he  came  to  himself,  the  first  thing  he  did  was  to  say: 
"Let  some  one  go  to  the  house  of  Curma  the  smith,  and  see 
how  it  is  with  him."  Curma  the  smith  was  found  to  have 
died  at  the  very  moment  in  which  Curma  the  farmer  "had 
returned  to  his  senses  and  almost  been  resuscitated  from 
death."  He  then  told  that  he  had  heard  in  that  place 
whence  he  had  just  returned  that  it  was  not  Curma  the 
farmer  but  Curma  the  smith  who  had  been  ordered  to  be 
brought  to  the  place  of  the  dead.  Augustine,  now,  tells 
us  that  he  knew  this  man,  and  at  the  next  Easter  baptized 
him.  It  was  not  until  two  years  later,  however,  that  he 
learned  of  his  vision;  but  then  he  sent  for  him  and  had 
him  bring  witnesses  with  him.  He  had  his  story  from  his 
own  lips  and  verified  all  the  circumstantial  facts  carefully 
by  the  testimony  of  others  who  had  first-hand  knowledge 
of  them — Curma's  sickness,  his  recovery,  his  narrative  of 


78  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

what  had  befallen  him,  and  the  timely  death  of  the  other 
Curma.  He  not  only  himself  believes  it  all,  but  clearly 
expects  his  readers  to  believe  it  on  the  ground  of  his  testi- 
mony. 

This,  however,  is  only  the  beginning.  Gregory  the  Great 
tells  the  same  story14 — not,  however,  on  the  authority  of 
Augustine  as  having  happened  to  Curma  of  Tullium,  but 
as  having  happened  within  his  own  knowledge  to  an  ac- 
quaintance of  his  own — "the  illustrious  Stephen,"  he  calls 
him,  a  man  well  known  (and  that  means  favorably  known), 
he  says,  to  Peter,  the  friend  to  whom  he  is  writing.  Ste- 
phen, he  says,  had  related  to  him  frequently  his  wonderful 
experience.  He  had  gone  to  Constantinople  on  business, 
and,  falling  sick,  had  died  there.  The  embalmers  being  a 
little  difficult  to  get  at,  the  body  was  fortunately  left  over- 
night unburied.  Meanwhile  the  soul  was  conducted  to  the 
lower  regions  and  brought  before  the  judge.  The  judge, 
however,  repelled  it,  saying:  "It  was  not  this  one,  but  Ste- 
phen the  smith  that  I  ordered  to  be  brought."  The  soul 
was  immediately  returned  to  the  body,  and  Stephen  the 
smith,  who  lived  near  by,  died  at  that  very  hour.  Thus  it 
was  proved  that  "the  illustrious  Stephen"  had  really  heard 
the  words  of  the  judge ;  the  death  of  Stephen  the  smith  dem- 
onstrated it.  Are  we  bound,  on  the  credit  of  Augustine 
and  Gregory,  both  of  whom  relate  it  as  having  happened 
within  their  own  knowledge  to  acquaintances  of  their  own, 
to  believe  that  this  thing  really  did  happen,  happened  twice, 
and  in  both  cases  through  one  of  the  same  name  being  mis- 
taken for  a  smith? 

We  are  not  yet,  however,  at  the  end  of  the  matter.  The 
same  story  is  related  by  the  heathen  satirist  Lucian,15 
writing  as  far  back  as  the  third  quarter  of  the  second  cen- 
tury— two  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  Augustine,  and 
three  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  Gregory.  Only, 
Lucian  has  this  advantage  over  his  Christian  successors 
in  his  way  of  telling  it,  that  he  does  not  tell  it  as  having 


FACT  AND   FICTION  79 

really  happened,  but  in  a  rollicking  mood,  laughing  at  the 
superstitions  of  his  time.  He  brings  before  us  a  chance 
gathering  of  men,  who,  in  their  conversation,  fall  to  vying 
with  one  another  in  "romancing"  of  their  supernatural 
experiences.  One  of  them,  a  Peripatetic,  named  Cleode- 
mus,  makes  this  contribution  to  the  conversation.  "I  had 
become  ill,  and  Antigonus  here  was  attending  me.  The 
fever  had  been  on  me  for  seven  days,  and  was  now  aggra- 
vated by  the  excessive  heat.  All  my  attendants  were  out- 
side, having  closed  the  door  and  left  me  to  myself;  those 
were  your  orders,  you  know,  Antigonus ;  I  was  to  get  some 
sleep  if  I  could-  Well,  I  woke  up  to  find  a  handsome  young 
man  standing  by  my  side,  in  a  white  cloak.  He  raised  me 
up  from  the  bed,  and  conducted  me  through  a  sort  of  a 
chasm  into  Hades ;  I  knew  where  I  was  at  once,  because  I 
saw  Tantalus  and  Tityus  and  Sisyphus.  Not  to  go  into 
details,  I  came  to  the  judgment-hall,  and  there  were  JE&cus 
and  Charon,  and  the  Fates  and  the  Furies.  One  person 
of  a  majestic  appearance — Pluto,  I  suppose  it  was — sat 
reading  out  the  names  of  those  who  were  due  to  die,  their 
term  of  life  having  lapsed.  The  young  man  took  me  and 
set  me  before  him,  but  Pluto  flew  into  a  rage:  'Away  with 
him,'  he  said  to  my  conductor;  'his  thread  is  not  yet  out; 
go  and  fetch  Demylus  the  smith;  he  has  had  his  spindleful 
and  more!'  I  ran  off  home,  nothing  loath.  My  fever  had 
now  disappeared,  and  I  told  everybody  that  Demylus  was 
as  good  as  dead.  He  lived  close  by,  and  was  said  to  have 
some  illness,  and  it  was  not  long  before  we  heard  the  voices 
of  mourners  in  his  house." 

The  late  James  Payne,  the  novelist,  used  whimsically  to 
contend  that  fiction  did  not  imitate  life  as  was  commonly 
supposed,  but,  on  the  contrary,  life  imitated  fiction;  a 
romancer  could  not  invent  a  motive,  he  said,  however 
bizarre,  but  a  lot  of  people  would  soon  be  found  staging 
copies  of  it  in  real  life.  Perhaps  on  some  such  theory  we 
might  defend  the  reality  of  the  occurrences  related  by  Au- 


80  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

gustine  and  Gregory  as  having  happened  within  their  own 
knowledge.  Scarcely  on  any  other.  That  the  source  of 
Augustine's  and  Gregory's  stories  lies  in  Lucian's  is  too 
obvious  to  require  arguing;  even  the  doomed  smith  is 
common  to  all  three,  and  the  strong  heathen  coloring  of  the 
story  is  not  obscured,  in  Gregory's  version  at  least,  which 
clearly  is  independent  of  Augustine's.  Heinrich  Gunter 
has  an  ingenious  theory  designed  to  save  the  credit  of  the 
saints.  He  supposes16  that  the  story  might  have  been  so 
widely  known  that  sick  people  would  be  likely  to  reproduce 
it  in  their  fevered  dreams.  "To  such  an  extent,"  he  re- 
marks, "had  certain  imaginary  conceptions  become  the 
common  property  of  the  people  that  they  repeated  them- 
selves as  autosuggestions  and  dreams." 17  One  would 
presume,  even  so,  that  when  the  dreamers  woke  up,  they 
would  recognize  their  dreams  as  old  acquaintances ;  and 
how  shall  we  account  for  Augustine  and  Gregory  not  recog- 
nizing such  well-known  stories  circulating  so  universally 
among  the  masses,  when  they  were  told  them  as  fresh  ex- 
periences of  the  other  world? 

Hippolyte  Delehaye  frankly  gives  up  the  effort  to  save 
the  credit  of  all  parties.  "It  is  impossible  to  be  mis- 
taken," he  comments.18  "That  friend  of  St.  Gregory's  was 
an  unscrupulous  person,  who  bragged  of  having  been  the 
hero  of  a  story  which  he  had  read  in  the  books.  To  say 
nothing  of  St.  Augustine,  Plutarch  could  have  taught  it 
to  him,  and  better  still,  Lucian."  Nothing  is  said  here  to 
save  Augustine's  reputation  for  truthfulness;  and  if  Greg- 
ory's honor  is  saved  it  is  at  the  expense  not  only  of  his 
friend  Stephen's,  but  also  of  his  own  intelligence.  Could 
not  Gregory,  as  well  as  Stephen,  have  read  his  Plutarch  or 
his  Lucian,  to  say  nothing  of  his  Augustine,  whom  of  course 
he  had  read,  though  equally  of  course  he  had  not  remem- 
bered him?  And  how  could  he  have  listened  to  and  re- 
peated Stephen's  tale  without  noting  the  heathen  coloring 
of  it,  which  alone  should  have  stamped  it  to  him  as  a  bit 


THE   CREDIT  OF  THE  SAINTS  81 

of  romancing?  R.  Reitzenstein  is  not  so  tender  of  the 
honor  of  the  saints  as  Delehaye,  and  has  theories  of  his 
own  to  consider.  The  close  agreement  of  the  details  of  the 
story  as  Augustine  tells  it  with  Lucian's  version,  as  well  as 
the  use  which  Augustine  makes  of  it,  "leave  no  doubt,"  he 
thinks,19  "  that  Augustine  has  simply  transferred  to  his  own 
time  an  early  Christian  miracle-tale,  known  to  him  in 
literary  form,  without  taking  offense  at  this  ^vSo?,  which 
obviously  belongs  to  the  style;  that  early  Christian  story 
having  been  on  its  part  taken  almost  verbally  from  a 
heathen  motive."  Gregory  is  supposed  to  have  derived 
indirectly  from  Augustine — which,  we  may  say  in  passing, 
is  impossible,  since  Gregory's  story  is  much  closer  to  Lu- 
cian's than  Augustine's  is.  And  we  may  say,  also  in  pass- 
ing, that  there  is  no  proof  of  the  circulation  of  the  story  in 
a  written  early  Christian  form,  and  no  justification  for  rep- 
resenting Augustine  as  receiving  it  from  any  other  source 
than  that  which  he  himself  expressly  indicates — namely  the 
narrative  of  Curma.  Augustine  comes  out  of  the  affair 
with  his  feathers  ruffled  enough ;  we  need  not  gratuitously 
ruffle  them  more. 

With  Reitzenstein  we  pass  over  from  the  theologians  to 
the  philologists,  and  the  philologists'  interest  in  the  matter 
is  absorbed  in  the  formal  question  of  the  origin  and  trans- 
mission of  the  story.  It  occurs  not  only  in  Lucian,  but 
also,  in  a  form  less  closely  related  to  that  in  which  Augus- 
tine and  Gregory  repeat  it,  in  Plutarch.  Like  Augustine 
and  Gregory,  Plutarch  relates  it  in  all  seriousness  as  having 
happened  within  his  own  knowledge  to  a  friend  of  his  own.20 
Erwin  Rohde21  thinks  that  Lucian  is  directly  parodying 
Plutarch's  anecdote;  L.  Radermacher22  pronounces  this 
absurd;  and  Reitzenstein23  agrees  with  him  in  this.  All 
three,  on  grounds  which  appear  very  insufficient,  declare 
the  story  to  have  been  in  popular  circulation  before  even 
Plutarch,  and  all  would  doubtless  contend  that  the  Chris- 
tians picked  it  up  in  the  first  instance  from  its  oral  circula- 


82  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

tion  rather  than  took  it  over  directly  from  Lucian — which 
again  does  not  seem  clear. 

With  such  matters  we  have  now  little  concern.  Our  in- 
terest is  fixed  for  the  moment  on  ascertaining  the  amount 
of  credit  which  is  due  to  Augustine  and  Gregory  when  they 
tell  us  marvellous  stories.  The  outstanding  fact  is  that 
they  stake  their  credit  in  this  instance  on  a  marvellous 
story  which  very  certainly  did  not  happen.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  go  the  lengths  of  Reitzenstein  and  charge 
Augustine  with  copying  the  story  out  of  a  book,  and  at- 
tributing it  to  quite  another  source  than  that  from  which 
he  really  derived  it,  elaborately  inventing  sponsors  for  his 
new  story.  That  is  a  thing  which,  we  may  be  sure,  could 
not  happen  with  Augustine ;  and  the  explanation  of  Rader- 
macher  that  it  belongs  to  the  accepted  methods  of  utilizing 
such  materials  that  the  sponsors  for  the  story  should,  on 
each  new  telling,  be  altered  into  personages  known  to  the 
teller,  does  not  remove  the  difficulty  of  supposing  that  this 
happened  with  an  Augustine.  But  the  trustworthiness  of 
the  saints  as  relaters  of  marvels  is  not  saved  by  supposing 
they  were  deceived  by  their  informants,  even  though  we 
could  imagine  those  informants,  with  Giinter,  in  some  ab- 
surd fashion  to  have  been  self-deceived,  and  themselves 
honest  in  their  narratives.  Nothing  can  change  the  central 
fact  that  both  Augustine  and  Gregory  report  as  having 
happened  within  their  own  knowledge  an  absurd  story 
which  a  Lucian  had  already  made  ridiculous  for  all  the 
world  some  centuries  before.  Clearly  their  credit  is  broken, 
as  witnesses  of  marvellous  occurrences.  The  one  fact  which 
stands  out  in  clear  light,  after  all  that  can  be  said  has  been 
said,  is  that  they  were,  in  the  matter  of  marvellous  stories, 
in  the  slang  phrase,  "easy."  23a 

One  of  the  reasons  why  we  have  chosen  this  particular 
incident  for  discussion  lies  in  the  illustration  which  it  sup- 
plies of  the  taking  over  into  Christianity  of  a  heathen 
legend  bodily.     In  this  case  it  is  only  a  little  isolated  story 


SPOILING  THE   EGYPTIANS  83 

which  is  in  question.  But  the  process  went  on  on  the 
largest  scale.  Every  religious  possession  the  heathen  had, 
indeed,  the  Christians,  it  may  be  said  broadly,  transferred 
to  themselves  and  made  their  own.  As  one  of  the  results, 
the  whole  body  of  heathen  legends,  in  one  way  or  another, 
reproduced  themselves  on  Christian  ground.  The  re- 
markable studies  of  the  Christian  legends  which  Heinrich 
Giinter  has  given  us,24  enable  us  to  assure  ourselves  of  the 
fact  of  this  transference,  and  to  observe  its  process  in  the 
large.  On  sketching  the  legendary  material  found  in  the 
pagan  writers,  he  exclaims:25  " After  this  survey  it  will  be 
seen  that  there  is  not  much  left  for  the  Middle  Ages  to  in- 
vent. They  only  present  the  same  ideas  in  variations  and 
Christianized  forms,  and  perhaps  also  expanded  on  one 
side  or  another.  There  is  no  doubt  as  to  the  agreement  of 
the  conceptions."  "With  the  sixth  century,"  he  says 
again,26  "we  find  the  whole  ancient  system  of  legends 
Christianized,  not  only  as  anonymous  and  unlocalized  va- 
grants, but  more  and  more  condensed,  in  a  unitary  picture, 
into  a  logical  group  of  conceptions,  and  connected  with 
real  relations  of  historical  personalities,  whose  historical 
figures  they  overlie.  .  .  .  The  transference  of  the  legend 
became  now  the  chief  thing,  the  saint  of  history  gave  way 
to  that  of  the  popular  desire."  "Hellenism — Pythagore- 
anism — Neo-Platonism — Christian  Middle  Ages," — thus 
he  sums  up27 — "the  parallelism  of  these  has  made  it  very 
clear  that  the  legend  in  the  grotesque  forms  of  a  Nicholas 
Peregrinus  or  Keivinos  or  of  the  Mary  legend  is  not  a  specif- 
ically Christian  thing."  In  one  word,  what  we  find,  when 
we  cast  our  eye  over  the  whole  body  of  Christian  legends, 
growing  up  from  the  third  century  down  through  the  Mid- 
dle Ages,  is  merely  a  reproduction,  in  Christian  form,  of 
the  motives,  and  even  the  very  incidents,  which  already 
meet  us  in  the  legends  of  heathendom.  We  do  not  speak 
now  of  the  bodily  taking  over  of  heathen  gods  and  goddesses 
and  the  transformation  of  them  into  Christian  saints;  or 


84  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

of  the  invention  of  saints  to  be  the  new  bearers  of  locally 
persisting  legends;  or  of  the  mere  transference  to  Christi- 
anity of  entire  heathen  legends,  such  as  that  of  Barlaam 
and  Joasaph,  which  nobody  nowadays  doubts  is  just  the 
story  of  Buddha.28  What  we  have  in  mind  at  the  moment 
is  the  complete  reproduction  in  the  conception-world  of 
the  Christian  legends  of  what  is  already  found  in  the 
heathen.  In  this  respect  the  two  are  precise  duplicates. 
We  may  still,  no  doubt,  raise  the  question  of  the  ultimate 
origin  of  this  conception-world.  That,  remarks  Giinter, 
"is  not  determined  by  the  fact  that  it  is  the  common  pos- 
session of  all.  In  the  last  analysis,"  he  declares,29  "it  has 
come  out  of  the  belief  of  mankind  in  the  other  world.  It 
is  scarcely  possible  now  to  determine  how  old  it  is,  or  where 
it  originated.  The  manner  in  which  it  flowered,  and  es- 
pecially in  which  it  discharged  itself  into  Christianity, 
however,  gives  an  intimation  also  of  the  explanation  of  its 
first  origin."  It  is  this  mass  of  legends,  the  Christianized 
form  of  the  universal  product  of  the  human  soul,  working 
into  concrete  shape  its  sense  of  the  other  world,  that  the 
church  of  Rome  has  taken  upon  its  shoulders.  It  is  not 
clear  that  it  has  added  anything  of  importance  to  it.30 

There  is  one  type  of  miracle,  it  is  true,  which  is  new  to 
Christianity,  though  not  to  the  church  of  Rome;  for  it 
was  invented  by  the  mediaeval  church,  and  has  been  taken 
from  it  with  the  rest.  We  refer  to  stigmatization.  The 
heathen  world  had  no  stigmatics;  they  are  a  specifically 
Christian  creation,31  deriving  their  impulse  from  the  con- 
templation of  the  wounds  of  Christ.  The  first  stigmatic 
known  to  history  is  Francis  of  Assisi.32  After  him,  however, 
there  have  come  a  great  multitude,  extending  in  unbroken 
series  down  to  our  own  day.  The  earliest  of  these  is 
Catharine  of  Siena  (1370),  who,  however,  possessed  the 
stigmata  only  inwardly,  not  in  outward  manifestation;33 
the  latest  the  fame  of  whom  has  reached  the  general  public 
is  a  certain  Gemma  Galgani  of  Lucca,  who  received  the 


STIGMATIZATION  85 

five  wounds  In  1899,  those  of  the  crown  of  thorns  being 
added  in  1900,  and  of  the  scourging  in  1901 — the  external 
signs,  in  her  case  too,  being  subsequently  removed  in  answer 
to  her  prayers.34  A.  Imbert-Gourbeyre35  has  noted  321  in- 
stances in  all,  only  41  of  which  have  been  men,  along  with 
280  women;  the  nineteenth  century  supplies  29  of  his  in- 
stances. Only  62  of  the  321  have  received  the  official  recog- 
nition of  the  church  in  the  form  of  canonization  or  beatifi- 
cation ;  and,  indeed,  it  is  sometimes  hinted  that  the  church 
is  not  absolutely  committed  to  the  supernatural  character 
of  the  stigmata  in  more  than  two  or  three  instances — 
in  that  of  Francis  of  Assisi,  of  course,  and  with  him  per- 
haps also  only  in  those  of  Catharine  of  Siena  and  Lucie  de 
Narnia.36  A  disposition  is  manifested  in  some  Romanist 
writers,  in  fact,  to  speak  with  great  reserve  of  the  super- 
naturalness  of  the  stigmata.  A.  Poulain,  who  writes  the 
article  on  the  subject  in  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  for  ex- 
ample, will  not  distinctly  assert  that  they  are  supernatural 
in  origin,  but  contents  himself  with  declaring  that  they 
have  not  been  shown  to  be  natural.  Others  remind  us 
that37  "the  learned  pope,  Benedict  XIV,  in  his  Treatise 
on  the  Canonization  of  tlie  Saints,  does  not  attach  capital 
importance  to  stigmatization,  and  does  not  seek  in  it  a 
demonstration  of  sanctity;  but  himself  notes  that  nature 
may  have  some  part  in  it  as  well  as  grace" ;  or  that  Ignatius 
Loyola,  when  "consulted  one  day  about  a  young  stigmatic, 
responded  that  the  marks  described  to  him  might  just  as 
well  have  been  the  work  of  the  devil  as  of  God."  38 

The  writer  of  the  article  on  this  subject  in  Migne's  Dic- 
tionnaire  des  Propheties  el  des  Miracles39  seems  to  speak  with 
Loyola's  warning  ever  in  mind,  and  to  be  above  all  things 
anxious  that  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  these  stigmatic 
marks  are  no  safe  indicia  of  supernatural  action.  He  ap- 
pears almost  to  bewail  the  multitudinousness  of  the  in- 
stances, lest  by  it  we  should  be  betrayed  into  confusing  the 
good  and  the  bad.     Francis  and  Catharine,  he  says,  "are 


86  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

in  fact  the  two  most  ancient  examples  related  by  history 
.  .  .  but  since  then,"  he  sighs,  "how  many  stigmatics  has 
the  world  not  seen !"  "It  is  a  great  pity,"  he  goes  on  to 
object,  "that  the  ignorance  of  the  people,  always  benev- 
olent and  pious  in  their  judgments,  should  take  for  divine 
favors  natural  marks  resulting  from  certain  maladies  which 
it  is  scarcely  decent  even  to  name,  or  from  the  artifices  of 
fraud ;  and  it  is  a  very  horrible  thing  that  fraud  should  have 
a  place  in  a  matter  so  respectable  and  so  holy."  "The 
Charpy  of  Troyes,"  he  exclaims,  "was  stigmatized;  the 
Bucaille  of  Valogne  was  stigmatized;  Marie  Desrollee  of 
Coutance  was  stigmatized;  the  Cadiere  was  stigmatized; 
and  how  many  others  besides !  We  have  known  of  those 
who  have  deserved  nothing  so  little  as  the  name  of  saint 
which  was  attached  to  them  by  a  mocking  or  a  credulous 
public ;  there  were  convulsionnaires  of  St.  Medard  who  were 
stigmatized.  But  let  us  allow  the  curtain  to  fall  on  these 
ignoble  actors  of  sacrilegious  comedies;  the  list  is  neither 
short  nor  edifying."  If  any  one  wishes  to  know  anything 
more  about  the  ladies  he  has  just  mentioned,  he  says,  let 
him  go  where  the  biographies  of  such  ladies  are  wont  to 
be  found.  Meanwhile,  speaking  of  the  stigmatics  of  our 
own  day:  "We  know  personally  some  of  them,"  he  says,40 
"and  we  leave  them  in  the  obscurity  from  which  it  has  not 
pleased  God  to  draw  them.  This  phenomenon,  natural  or 
divine,  is  not  as  rare  as  might  be  supposed.  But  natural 
as  it  may  be  in  many  persons,  it  sanctifies  itself,  and  divini- 
tizes  itself,  so  to  speak,  by  the  use  which  they"  (the  fem- 
inine "they")  "know  how  to  make  of  it,  and  the  increase 
of  faith,  of  love  divine,  of  patience,  and  of  Christian  resig- 
nation which  it  produces  in  them"  (feminine  "them"). 
"And  permit  me  here  a  reflection  which  arises  from  our 
subject  but  is  applicable  to  many  others.  On  the  Day  of 
God,  who  knows  all,  and  who  judges  all,  there  will  be  a 
great  disillusionment  for  many  people  who  have  thought 
that  they  recognized  the  divine  cachet  where  it  was  not, 


PATHOLOGICAL  PHENOMENA  87 

and  for  many  others  who  have  dared  to  attempt  to  efface 
it  where  it  was."  "We  have  not  greatly  advanced  the  ques- 
tion of  the  stigmata/'  he  confesses  in  closing,41  "but  if  any 
of  our  readers,  affected  by  an  inclination  to  attribute  all 
these  phenomena  to  natural  causes,  has  come  in  the  end  to 
doubt  this  conclusion  or  to  understand  that  the  question 
is  always  an  individual  one,  and  cannot  be  resolved  in  one 
sense  or  the  other  except  after  examination,  and  inde- 
pendently of  all  analogy,  we  shall  not  have  entirely  lost  our 
time."  It  seems  not  an  unfair  paraphrase  of  this  to  say 
that  the  stigmata  are  in  themselves  no  signs  of  the  divine 
action ;  anybody  can  have  them ;  but  when  he  who  has  them 
is  a  saint  it  should  be  understood  that  they  have  been 
sent  him  by  God.  This,  however,  is  obviously  to  make  the 
saint  accredit  the  stigmata,  and  not  the  stigmata  the  saint. 
And  it  clearly  removes  them  out  of  the  category  of  miracu- 
lous manifestations. 

Such  a  cautious  method  of  dealing  with  the  stigmata  is 
certainly  justified  by  the  facts  of  the  case.  The  single  cir- 
cumstance that  only  ecstatics  receive  them42  is  suggestion 
enough  of  their  origin  in  morbid  neuroses.43  It  is  sufficient 
to  read  over  an  account  of  the  phenomena,  written  by  how- 
ever sympathetic  an  observer — say,  for  example,  that  by 
Joseph  von  Gorres  in  his  great  book  on  Christian  Mysti- 
cismu — to  feel  sure  that  we  are  in  the  presence  of  path- 
ological phenomena.  It  is  a  crime  to  drag  these  suffering 
women  into  the  public  eye;  and  it  is  a  greater  crime  to 
implant  in  their  unformed  intelligences45  that  spiritual 
pride  which  leads  them  to  fancy  themselves  singled  out  by 
the  Lord  for  special  favors,  and  even  permitted  by  Him 
to  share  His  sufferings — nay,  to  join  with  Him  in  bearing 
the  sins  of  the  world.  For  we  do  not  fully  apprehend  the 
place  given  to  stigmatization  in  the  Roman  system  of 
thought  until  we  realize  that  the  passion  of  the  stigmatics 
is  not  expended  in  what  we  call  the  "imitation  of  Christ" 
— the  desire  to  be  like  Him,  and  to  enter  into  His  sufferings 


88  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

with  loving  sympathy — but  presses  on  into  the  daring  am- 
bition to  take  part  in  His  atoning  work,  and,  by  receiving 
the  same  bodily  wounds  which  He  received,  to  share  with 
Him  the  saving  of  the  world.  "The  substance  of  this 
grace,"  explains  Aug.  Poulain,46  "consists  in  pity  for  Christ, 
participation  in  His  sufferings,  sorrows,  and  for  the  same  end 
— the  expiation  of  the  sins  increasingly  committed  in  the 
world.'"  The  matter  is  expounded  fully  by  G.  Dumas, 
professor  of  religious  psychology  at  the  Sorbonne,  in  the 
course  of  an  admirable  general  discussion  of  "Stigmatiza- 
tion  in  the  Christian  Mystics,"  printed  in  the  Revue  des 
Deux  Mondes  for  the  ist  of  May,  1907.47  We  avail  our- 
selves of  his  illuminating  statement. 

"First  of  all,"  says  he,  "it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  point 
out  the  symbolical  and  profound  sense  which  all  the 
mystics  attach  to  the  very  fact  of  stigmatization. 

"To  bear  the  marks  of  the  cross,  of  the  crown  of  thorns, 
of  the  lance,  or  of  the  nails  is  to  be  thought  worthy  by 
Jesus  to  participate  in  His  sufferings ;  it  is  according  to  the 
very  words  of  a  historian  of  mysticism,  'to  ascend  with 
Him  to  the  Calvary  of  the  crucifixion  before  mounting  with 
Him  the  Tabor  of  the  Transfiguration.'48  All  the  mystics, 
accordingly,  suffer  violent  pains  in  their  stigmata,  and  they 
hold  these  pains  to  be  the  essential  part  of  their  stigmatiza- 
tion, without  which  their  visible  stigmata  would  be  in  their 
eyes  only  an  empty  decoration.  They  experience  under 
the  cross,  under  the  crown,  under  the  nails,  under  the  lance 
the  same  sufferings  as  Jesus;  they  really  languish  and  die 
with  Him;  they  participate  in  His  passion  with  all  the 
force  of  their  nerves.  We  have  seen  Francis  and  Veronica 
suffer  in  their  ecstasies  all  the  pains  of  the  crucifixion ;  they 
all  do  this.  Catherine  de  Ruconisio  experienced  violent 
pains  under  the  crown  of  blood  which  she  let  John  Francis 
de  la  Mirandola  see;  Archangelica  Tardera  seemed  at  the 
point  of  rendering  up  her  soul  during  the  scene  of  her  flagel- 
lation;   and  Catherine  de'  Ricci,  on  coming  out  of  the 


SUFFRAGAN   SAVIOURS  89 

swoon  in  which  she  was  marked,  'appeared  to  her  associ- 
ates so  wasted  and  so  livid  that  she  looked  to  them  like 
a  living  corpse.' 

"In  suffering  thus  the  mystics  persuade  themselves  not 
only  that  they  draw  near  to  Jesus,  but  that  they  are  ad- 
mitted by  a  kind  of  divine  grace  to  perpetuate  the  sacrifice 
of  their  God,  to  expiate  like  Him  sins  of  which  they  are 
personally  innocent.  These  sharp  pains  of  the  thorns, 
these  piercing  sufferings  of  the  nails  and  of  the  lance,  are 
not,  in  their  minds,  pains  lost  for  men;  they  redeem  sins, 
they  constitute  pledges  of  salvation,  they  are  for  them  the 
religious  and  metaphysical  form  of  charity.  'These  re- 
parative souls  which  recommence  the  terrors  of  Calvary/ 
says  a  contemporary  mystic,49  'these  souls  who  nail  them- 
selves in  the  empty  place  of  Jesus  on  the  cross,  are  there- 
fore in  some  sort  express  images  of  the  Son;  they  reflect 
in  a  bloody  mirror  His  poor  face;  they  do  more:  they  give 
to  this  Almighty  God  the  only  thing  which  He  yet  lacks, 
the  possibility  of  still  suffering  for  us;  they  satiate  this  de- 
sire which  has  survived  His  death,  since  it  is  infinite  like 
the  love  which  engenders  it.'  The  stigmata  are  for  these 
new  crucified  ones  the  external  notification  of  their  trans- 
formation into  Jesus  Christ;  they  proclaim  that  Archan- 
gelica  Tardera,  that  Veronica  Giuliani,  that  Catherine  de' 
Ricci  are  so  like  to  their  God  that  they  succeed  Him  in 
His  sufferings;  they  are  the  visible  seals  of  their  sanctity." 

The  connection  of  stigmatization  with  such  doctrine  is   / 
the  sufficient  proof  that  it  is  not  from  God.50 

It  is  often  urged  in  defense  of  the  miraculousness  of  the 
stigmata  that  they  have  not  yet  been  exactly  reproduced 
in  the  laboratories.51  It  is  not  clear  why  a  phenomenon 
so  obviously  pathological,  and  in  many  instances  confess- 
edly pathological,  should  be  pronounced  miraculous  in 
others  of  its  instances  merely  because  the  imitation  of  it 
produced  in  the  laboratories  is  not  exact.  If,  however, 
the  precise  thing  has  not  been  produced  in  the  laboratories, 


90  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

something  so  like  it  has  been  that  it  is  made  quite  clear  that 
external  suggestion  is  capable  of  producing  phenomena  of 
the  same  general  order.  William  James  may  be  appealed 
to  to  tell  us  the  general  state  of  the  case.  "I  may  say," 
writes  he,52  "that  there  seems  no  reasonable  ground  for 
doubting  that  in  certain  chosen  subjects  the  suggestion  of  a 
congestion,  a  burn,  a  blister,  a  raised  papule,  or  a  bleeding 
from  the  nose  or  skin  may  produce  the  effect."  "Messrs. 
Delbceuf  and  Liegeois  have  annulled  by  suggestion,  one  the 
effects  of  a  burn,  the  other  of  a  blister."  Delbceuf  "  applied 
the  actual  cautery  (as  well  as  vesicants)  to  symmetrical 
places  on  the  skin,  affirming  that  no  pain  should  be  felt  on 
one  of  the  sides.  The  result  was  a  dry  scorch  on  that 
side,  with  (as  he  assures  me)  no  after-mark,  but  on  the  other 
side  a  regular  blister,  with  suppuration  and  a  subsequent 
scar.  This  explains  the  innocuity  of  certain  assaults  made 
on  subjects  during  trance.  .  .  .  These  irritations,  when 
not  felt  by  the  subject,  seem  to  have  no  after-consequences. 
One  is  reminded  of  the  non-inflammatory  character  of  the 
wounds  made  on  themselves  by  dervishes  in  their  pious 
orgies.  On  the  other  hand,  the  reddenings  and  bleedings 
of  the  skin  along  certain  lines,  suggested  by  tracing  lines 
or  pressing  objects  thereupon,  put  the  accounts  handed 
down  to  us  of  the  stigmata  of  the  cross  appearing  on  the 
hands,  feet,  side,  and  forehead  of  certain  Catholic  mystics 
in  a  new  light." 

Certainly  the  effects  produced  by  external  suggestion  in 
the  laboratories  are  very  remarkable,  and  cannot  fail  to 
lead  the  mind  in  the  direction  of  a  natural  explanation  of 
the  stigmata.  When  we  see  Doctor  Rybalkin  of  St.  Peters- 
burg, by  a  mere  command,  produce  a  bad  burn,  which 
blisters  and  breaks  and  scabs,  and  slowly  heals  like  any 
other  burn;  or  Doctor  Biggs  of  Santa  Barbara  a  red  cross 
on  the  chest  which  appears  every  Friday  and  disappears 
for  the  other  days  of  the  week;53  we  acquire  a  new  sense  of 
the  extent  of  the  possible  action  of  the  mind  upon  the 


NATURAL  EXPLANATIONS  91 

body,  and  may  perhaps  begin  to  understand  what  can  be 
meant  when  it  is  said:54  "That  I  should  be  able  to  hold 
my  pen  because  I  wish  to  do  it,  is  ultimately  just  as  great 
a  mystery  as  that  I  should  develop  stigmata  from  medi- 
tating on  the  Crucifixion."    To  do  them  justice,  there  were 
not  wanting  Catholic  writers  before  the  days  of  this  new 
experimentation  who  had  more  than  a  glimpse  of  the  pro- 
ducing cause  of  the  stigmata.     Francesco  Petrarch  felt  no 
doubt  that  Francis'  stigmata  were  from  God,  but  neither 
had  he  any  doubt— he  says  so  himself,  when  writing,  be  it 
observed,  to  a  physician— that  they  were  actually  produced 
by  the  forces  of  his  own  mind  working  on  his  body.     "Be- 
yond all  doubt,  the  stigmata  of  St.  Francis,"  he  writes,55 
"had  the  following  origin:  he  attached  himself  to  the  death 
of  Christ  with  such  strong  meditations  that  he  reproduced 
it  in  his  mind,  saw  himself  crucified  with  his  Master,  and 
finished  by  actualizing  in  his  body  the  pious  representations 
of  his  soul."     Even  Francis  de  Sales,  though  of  course  ab- 
solutely sure  that  the  ultimate  account  of  Francis'  stig- 
mata is  that  they  represented  "that  admirable  communica- 
tion which  the  sweet  Jesus  made  him,  of  His  loving  and 
precious  pains,"  yet  works  out  the  actual  mechanism  of 
their  production  in  elaborate  but  healthful  naturalism. 
"This  soul,  then,"  he  says,56  "so  mollified,  softened,  and 
almost  melted  away  in  this  loving  pain,  was  thereby  ex- 
tremely disposed  to  receive  the  impressions  and  marks  of 
the  love  and  pain  of  its  sovereign  Lover;  for  the  memory 
was  quite  steeped  in  the  remembrance  of  this  divine  love, 
the  imagination  strongly  applied  to  represent  to  itself  the 
wounds  and  bruises  which  the  eyes  there  beheld  so  per- 
fectly expressed  in  the  image  before  them,  the  understand- 
ing received  the  intensely  vivid  images  which  the  imagina- 
tion furnished  it  with;  and  finally,  love  employed  all  the 
forces  of  the  will  to  enter  into  and  conform  itself  to  the 
passion  of  the  Well-Beloved;  whence  no  doubt  the  soul 
found  itself  transformed  into  a  second  crucifixion.     Now 


92  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

the  soul,  as  form  and  mistress  of  the  body,  making  use  of 
its  power  over  it,  imprinted  the  pains  of  the  wounds  by 
which  it  was  wounded  in  the  parts  corresponding  to  those 
in  which  its  God  had  endured  them."  57 

With  all  its  three  hundred  and  more  examples,  however, 
it  is,  after  all,  a  small  place  which  stigmatization  takes  in 
the  wonder-life  of  the  church  of  Rome.  The  centre  about 
which  this  life  revolves  lies,  rather,  in  the  veneration  of 
relics,  which  was  in  a  very  definite  sense  a  derivation  from 
heathenism.  Hippolyte  Delehaye,  it  is  true,  puts  in  a 
protest  here.  "The  cult  of  the  saints,"  says  he,58  "did  not 
issue  from  the  cult  of  the  heroes,  but  from  the  cult  of  the 
martyrs;  and  the  honors  paid  to  them  from  the  beginning 
and  by  the  first  Christian  generations  which  had  known  the 
baptism  of  blood,  are  a  direct  consequence  of  the  eminent 
dignity  of  the  witnesses  of  Christ  which  Christ  himself  pro- 
claimed. From  the  respect  with  which  their  mortal  re- 
mains were  surrounded,  and  from  the  confidence  of  Chris- 
tians in  their  intercession,  there  proceeded  the  cult  of 
relics  with  all  its  manifestations,  with  its  exaggerations, 
alas!  only  too  natural,  and,  why  should  we  not  say  it? 
with  its  excesses,  which  have  sometimes  compromised  the 
memory  which  it  was  wished  to  honor."  These  remarks, 
however,  do  not  quite  reach  the  point.  What  is  asserted 
is  not  that  the  Christians  took  the  heathen  heroes  over  into 
their  worship,  though  there  were  heathen  heroes  whom  the 
Christians  did  take  over  into  their  worship.  Neither  is  it 
that  they  continued  unbrokenly  at  the  tombs  of  these 
heroes  the  heathen  rites  which  they  were  accustomed  to 
celebrate  there,  only  substituting  another  name  as  the 
object  venerated.  It  is  that  under  the  influence  of  these 
old  habits  of  thought  and  action  they  created  for  them- 
selves a  new  set  of  heroes,  Christian  heroes,  called  saints, 
and  developed  with  respect  to  their  relics  a  set  of  super- 
stitious practices  which  reproduced  in  all  their  essential 
traits  those  to  which  they  had  been  accustomed  with  re- 


HEATHEN  AND   CHRISTIAN  RELICS  93 

spect  to  the  relics  of  the  heathen  heroes.  There  is  cer- 
tainly a  true  sense  in  which  the  saints  are  the  successors  of 
the  gods,59  and  the  whole  body  of  superstitious  practices 
which  cluster  around  the  cult  of  relics  is  a  development  in 
Christian  circles  of  usages  which  parallel  very  closely  those 
of  the  old  heathenism.60  The  very  things  which  Delehaye 
enumerates  as  the  sources  of  the  later  cult  of  the  saints  and 
the  veneration  of  their  relics — the  cult  of  the  martyrs,  the 
honor  rendered  to  their  remains,  the  confidence  of  Chris- 
tians in  their  intercession — are  themselves  already  abuses 
due  to  the  projection  into  the  Christian  church  of  heathen 
habitudes  and  the  natural  imitation  of  heathen  example. 

There  are  no  doubt  differences  to  be  traced  between  the 
Christian  and  the  heathen  cult  of  relics.  And  these  differ- 
ences are  not  always  to  the  advantage  of  the  Christians. 
There  is  the  matter  of  the  partition  of  relics,  for  example, 
and  the  roaring  trade  which,  partly  in  consequence  of  this, 
has  from  time  to  time  been  driven  in  them.  The  ancient 
world  knew  nothing  of  these  horrors.  In  it  the  sentiment 
of  reverence  for  the  dead  determined  all  its  conduct  toward 
relics.  Christians  seem  to  have  been  inspired  rather  with 
eagerness  to  reap  the  fullest  possible  benefit  from  their 
saints ;  and,  reasoning  that  when  a  body  is  filled  with  super- 
natural power  every  part  of  the  body  partakes  of  this  power, 
they  broke  the  bodies  up  into  fragments  and  distributed 
them  far  and  wide.61  The  insatiable  lust  to  secure  such 
valuable  possessions  begot  in  those  who  trafficked  in  them  a 
callous  rapacity  which  traded  on  the  ignorance  and  super- 
stition of  the  purchasers.  The  world  was  filled  with  false 
relics,62  of  which,  however,  this  is  to  be  said — that  they 
worked  as  well  as  the  true.63  So  highly  was  the  mere  pos- 
session of  relics  esteemed  that  the  manner  of  their  acquisi- 
tion was  condoned  in  the  satisfaction  of  having  them. 
Theft  was  freely  resorted  to — it  was  called  furtum  lauda- 
bile;6i  and  violent  robbery  was  not  unknown — and  that 
with  (so  it  was  said)  the  manifest  approval  of  God.    St. 


94  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

Maximinus,  bishop  of  Treves,  died  at  Poitiers  (of  which 
town  he  was  a  native)  on  a  journey  to  Rome,  and  very 
naturally  was  buried  there.  But  the  inhabitants  of  Treves 
wished  their  bishop  for  themselves,  and  stole  him  out  of 
the  church  at  Poitiers.  When  the  Aquitanians  pursued  the 
thieves,  heaven  intervened  and  drove  them  back  home,  not 
without  disgrace,  while  the  thieves  were  left  scathless,65  and 
furthered  on  their  journey. 

All  sorts  of  irreverent  absurdities  naturally  found  their 
way  into  the  collections  of  relics,  through  an  inflamed 
craving  for  the  merely  marvellous.  The  height  of  the  ab- 
surd seems  already  to  be  reached  when  we  read  in  Pausa- 
nias  that  in  the  shrine  of  "the  daughters  of  Leucippus," 
at  Sparta,  the  egg  which  Leda  laid  was  to  be  seen.66  The 
absurdity  is  equally  great,  however,  when  we  hear  of  the 
Christians  preserving  feathers  dropped  from  the  wings  of 
Gabriel  when  he  came  to  announce  to  Mary  the  birth  of 
Jesus ;  and  it  is  only  covered  from  sight  by  the  shock  given 
by  the  irreverence  of  it,  when  we  read  of  pilgrim  monks 
boasting  of  having  seen  at  Jerusalem  the  finger  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.67  Any  ordinary  sense  of  the  ridiculous,  however, 
should  be  sufficiently  satisfied  by  the  solemn  exhibition  in 
the  church  of  Saints  Cosmas  and  Damien  at  Rome  of  a 
"vial  of  the  milk  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary."  But  Ossa 
is  piled  on  Pelion  when  we  learn  that  this  is  far  from  the 
only  specimen  of  Mary's  milk  which  is  to  be  seen  in  the 
churches.  Several  churches  in  Rome  have  specimens,  and 
many  in  France — at  Evron,  and  Soulac,  and  Mans,  and 
Reims,  and  Poitiers,  and  St.  Denis,  and  Bouillac,  and  the 
Sainte  Chapelle  at  Paris;  the  Cathedral  of  Soissons  has 
two  samples  of  it;  and  the  Cathedral  at  Chartres  three. 
Then  there  is  some  more  at  Toledo  and  at  the  convent 
of  St.  Peter  d'Arlanza  in  Spain,  and  of  course  in  other 
countries  as  well.  We  are  fairly  astonished  at  the  amount 
of  it.68 

This  astonishment  is  only  partly  relieved  when  we  are 


THE  MILK  OF  THE  VIRGIN  95 

told  that  not  all  of  this  milk  need  be  that  with  which  the 
Virgin  nourished  her  divine  Son.    The  Virgin,  it  seems, 
has  been  accustomed  all  through  the  ages  to  give  nourish- 
ment to  her  children  in  their  times  of  deadly  need,  and 
even  her  statues  and  paintings  may,  on  occasion,  supply 
it.69    We  are  here  in  conta.ct  with  a  wide-spread  legend  of 
mystical  nourishment  which  was  current  toward  the  end 
of  the  Middle  Ages.     "Mary  was  looked  upon,"  as  Yrjo 
Hirn  explains,70  "not  as  an  individual  human  being,  but 
as  an  incarnation  of  an  eternal  principle  which  had  exer- 
cised its  power  long  before  it  became  embodied  in  the  figure 
of  a  Jewish  girl.    The  Madonna's  motherly  care  had  previ- 
ously been  directed  to  all  the  faithful,  who  had  been  fed 
by  her  'milk'  in  the  same  way  as  the  Child  of  Bethlehem. 
In  Mechthild's  revelations  it  is  even  expressly  said  that  the 
Madonna  suckled  the  prophets  before  Christ  descended 
into  the  world.    Later,   she  fed,  during  His  childhood, 
'the  Son  of  God  and  all  of  us/  and  when  He  was  full-grown 
she  offered  her  milk  to  the  Christian  Church.    All  friends 
of  God  could  get  strength  at  her  bosom.     'Eja,  darnach 
sollen  wir  bekennen— Die  Milch  und  auch  die  Briiste— Die 
Jesus  so  oft  kiisste.' "  71    There  is  symbolism  here,  but  not 
mere  symbolism.    Therefore  Hirn  continues:72  "There  is 
no  question  of  symbolism  when,  in  the  miracle-histories, 
it  is  related  that  the  Madonna  cured  pious  individuals  with 
her  healing  milk.73    It  is  also  told  of  some  holy  men  that 
they  were  quite  literally  refreshed  by  Mary's  breast.     The 
pious  Suso  relates  without  reserve,  and  in  a  description  of 
great  detail,  how  he  tasted  'den  himmlischen  Trunk'  ;74  and 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  who  merited  the  Virgin's  gratitude 
more  than  any  other  man,  was  rewarded  for  all  his  pane- 
gyrics and  poems  by  Mary  visiting  him  in  his  cell  and  letting 
his  lips  be  moistened  by  the  food  of  the  heavenly  Child."  75 
"Thus,"   explains  Heinrich   Giinter,76   following  out   the 
same  theme,  "in  the  age  of  the  Mary-legend,  the  Virgin 
also  had  to  become  a  miraculous  nourisher,  and  that— in 


96  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

accordance  with  the  exaggerated  imagination  of  the  times 
— with  her  own  milk.  A  monk  gets  sick ;  mouth  and  throat 
are  so  swollen  that  he  can  take  no  nourishment ;  the  brethren 
expect  the  end.  Then  Mary  appears — visible  only  to  the 
sick  man — and  gives  him  her  breast  and  announces  to  him 
his  early  recovery.  Among  the  mystical  women  of  the 
convent  of  Tof  the  same  thing  happened  to  Sister  Adelheit 
of  Frauenberg;  she  narrates  it  herself:  Mary  says  to  her 
.  .  .  '"I  will  fulfil  your  desire  and  will  give  you  to  drink 
of  the  milk  with  which  I  suckled  my  holy  Child,"  and  she 
put  her  pure,  soft  breast  into  my  mouth;  and  when  this 
unspeakable  sweetness  was  done  to  me  I  was  on  the  point 
of  weeping.'" 

As  Mary,  although  the  chief,  is  not  the  only  sustainer  of 
God's  people,  so,  in  the  incredible  materialism  of  mediaeval 
thought,  it  is  not  she  alone  whose  milk  has  been  given  to 
succor  them  in  their  extremities.  One  and  another  of  the 
saints,  without  careful  regard  to  sex,  have  been  recorded 
as  performing  the  same  service.  Lacking  another,  Chris- 
tina Mirabilis  was  fed  from  her  own  virgin  breast.77  Even 
the  veins  of  saints,  in  token  of  their  functions  as  sustainers 
of  God's  people,  have  flowed  with  milk  as  well  as  with 
blood.78  This  was  the  case,  for  example,  with  Pantaleon, 
and  there  was  preserved  in  Constantinople  a  vessel  con- 
taining the  combined  blood  and  milk  which  had  issued 
from  his  martyred  body.  "Every  year,"  we  read,79  "they 
changed  places ;  when  '  once  in  our  time,  under  the  Emperor 
Michael  (that  is,  Paleologus,  1259-82),  the  blood  re- 
mained on  top,  it  was  a  year  filled  with  troubles.'"  Pan- 
taleon was  a  great  saint,  and  his  preserved  blood  even  acted 
as  a  palladium,  giving  oracles  of  weal  or  woe  to  the  for- 
tunate cities  which  possessed  it.  As  soon  as  the  famous 
liquefying  blood  of  Januarius  appeared  at  Naples,  Giinter 
tells  us,  "the  blood  of  Pantaleon,  too,  all  at  once  spread 
over  all  Italy,  everywhere  exhibiting  the  same  quality — 
in  Naples  itself  in  three  churches,  in  Ravello,  Bari,  Valli- 


LIQUEFACTION   OF  BLOOD  97 

cella,  Lucca,  Venice — without  San  Gennaro,  however,  suf- 
fering in  the  least  by  the  concurrence."  The  celebrated 
miracle  of  the  liquefaction  of  the  blood  of  Januarius  is  not 
then  unexampled.  In  the  single  Church  of  the  Holy  Apos- 
tles at  Rome  you  may  see  the  perpetually  liquid  blood  of 
St.  James  the  Less,  and  the  miraculous  blood  of  St.  Nicholas 
of  Tolentino,  which  exudes  from  his  arms  whenever  they 
are  separated  from  his  body.  And  at  the  near-by  nunnery 
of  St.  Cyriacus,  where  Cyriacus's  head  is  kept,  that  head 
has  been  said,  since  the  time  of  Gregory  IX  (1241),  to  have 
become  red  with  blood  on  the  anniversary  of  the  martyr's 
death,  and  the  reliquary  to  have  become  moist.80  Of  all 
the  miracles  of  this  kind,  however,  the  liquefaction  of  Janu- 
arius's  blood  is  the  most  famous.  It  is  exhibited  annually 
at  Naples,  on  the  day  of  the  saint's  festival.  Gunter  speaks 
of  it  with  the  prudence  which  becomes  a  historian  who  is 
also  a  Catholic.  "A  problem  before  which  criticism  is 
compelled  to  pause,"  says  he.81  "The  fact  is  assured;  the 
explanation  is  not  yet  discovered.  The  historian  may  con- 
tent himself  with  registering  that  the  blood-miracle  first 
appears  suddenly  in  the  late  Middle  Ages,  and  that  an 
older  notice  of  a  Neapolitan  miraculous  vial  exists,  which 
the  popular  belief  brought  into  connection,  however,  with 
the  magician  Vergil."  This  vial  enclosed  in  it  an  image  of 
the  city,  and  it  was  believed  that  so  long  as  the  vial  remained 
intact,  so  would  the  city.  It  was  esteemed,  in  other  words, 
as  the  palladium  of  the  city,  as  the  vial  of  Januarius  now  is. 
Relics,  however,  have  not  been  venerated  for  naught, 
and  it  is  not  merely  such  spectacular  miracles  which  have 
made  them  the  object  of  the  eager  regard  which  is  paid  them. 
As  Pfister  puts  it:81a  "The  basis  of  the  Christian  cult  of 
relics,  as  in  the  case  of  the  antique  cult,  lies  in  the  belief 
that  the  men  whose  remains  are  honored  after  their  death, 
were  in  their  lifetime  filled  with  special  power  by  virtue 
of  which  they  were  in  position  to  work  extraordinary  things: 
then,  that  this  power  still  filled  their  remains,  in  the  first 


98  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

instance,  of  course,  their  bodily  remains,  but,  after  that,  all 
that  had  come  into  contact  with  the  deceased."  It  was 
because  much  was  hoped  from  these  relics  that  they  were 
cherished  and  honored;  and  since  mankind  suffers  most 
from  bodily  ills  the  relics  have  naturally  been  honored 
above  everything  else  as  instruments  through  which  bodily 
relief  and  bodily  benefit  may  be  obtained.  Giinter  can 
write,82  no  doubt:  "In  the  times  of  the  inventions  and  trans- 
lations of  the  relics  there  were  naturally  innumerable  relic- 
miracles  promulgated.  It  was  not  only  that  the  'blind 
saw,  the  lame  walked,  the  lepers  were  cleansed,  the  deaf 
heard,  and  the  dead  were  raised,'  when  they  were  brought 
to  the  graves  of  the  saints;  the  sanctuaries  and  healing 
shrines  had  something  greater  still  in  the  incorruptibility 
of  the  bodies  of  the  saints,83  or  of  their  severed  limbs,  or  in 
astonishing  manifestations  of  power  and  life  of  other  kinds. 
Gregory's  Gloria  martyrum  and  Gloria  confessorum,  and  the 
activity  of  the  miraculous  goldsmith  of  Limoges,  and  of  the 
later  bishop  of  Noyon,  Eligius,  served  almost  exclusively  to 
glorify  the  graves  of  the  saints.  Eligius  was  endowed  from 
heaven  especially  for  the  discovery  of  relics.  He  himself, 
when  his  grave  was  opened  a  year  after  his  death  (De- 
cember i,  660)  was  wholly  uncorrupted,  just  as  if  he  were 
yet  alive;  beard  and  hair,  which  according  to  custom  had 
been  shaved,  had  grown  again."  But  Gtinter  requires  to 
add:  "It  is  in  their  power  to  help  (Hilfsmackt)  that,  on 
the  basis  of  old  experiences,  the  significance  of  the  graves 
of  the  saints  for  the  people  still  lies,  down  to  to-day."  In 
point  of  fact  the  great  majority  of  the  miracles  of  healing 
which  have  been  wrought  throughout  the  history  of  the 
church,  have  been  wrought  through  the  agency  of  relics.84 
Not  merely  the  actual  graves  of  the  saints,  but  equally 
any  places  where  fragments  of  their  bodies,  however  mi- 
nute, have  been  preserved,  have  become  healing  shrines,  to 
many  of  which  pilgrims  have  flocked  in  immense  numbers, 
often  from  great  distances,  and  from  which  there  have 


VENERATION  OF   RELICS  99 

spread  through  the  world  innumerable  stories  of  the  most 
amazing  cures,  and  even  of  the  restoration  of  the  dead 
to  life.  We  are  here  at  the  very  centre  of  the  miracle-life 
of  the  church  of  Rome.85 

We  have  pointed  out  the  affiliation  of  this  whole  develop- 
ment of  relic-veneration  with  heathenism.  We  are  afraid 
that,  as  we  survey  its  details,  the  even  uglier  word,  fetich- 
ism,  rises  unbidden  to  our  lips:  and  when  we  find  J.  A.  Mac- 
Culloch,  for  example,  writing  of  miracles  at  large,  speaking 
incidentally  of  "the  use  of  relics"  as  "at  bottom  a  species  of 
fetichism,"  86  we  cannot  gainsay  the  characterization.87 
Heinrich,  naturally,  repels  such  characterizations.  There 
is  no  heathenism,  fetichism,  in  the  cult  of  relics,  he  insists,88 
because  that  cult  is  relative,  and  that  with  a  double  rela- 
tivity. "Our  cult  terminates  really  on  God,  whom  we 
venerate  in  the  saints,"  he  says,  "and  thus  the  cult  becomes 
actually  a  religious  one;  it  is  a  relative  cult  in  a  double 
relation:  it  does  not  stop  with  the  relics  but  proceeds  to 
the  saints;  it  does  not  stop  with  the  saints  but  proceeds 
to  God  Himself."  We  are  afraid,  however,  that  this  reason- 
ing will  not  go  on  all  fours  with  Heinrich's  fundamental 
argument  for  the  propriety  of  venerating  relics.  "The 
veneration  of  the  saint,"  he  argues,89  "terminates  on  the 
■person  as  the  total  object,  more  particularly,  of  course,  on 
the  soul  than  on  the  body;  for  the  formal  object,  that 
is,  the  ground  of  the  veneration,  is  the  spiritual  excellences 
of  the  saint.  .  .  .  But  during  life  the  body  also  shares  in 
the  veneration  of  the  person  to  which  it  belongs.  It  must, 
therefore,  be  esteemed  holy  also  after  death;  the  venera- 
tion always  terminates  on  the  person."  We  may  miss  the 
logical  nexus  here;  it  may  not  seem  to  us  to  follow  that, 
because  the  body  shared  in  the  veneration  offered  to  the 
saint  while  it  was  part  of  the  living  person,  it  ought  there- 
fore— Heinrich  actually  says  "therefore" — to  share  in  this 
veneration  when  it  is  no  longer  a  part  of  the  living  person 
— any  more  than,  say,  the  exuvim  during  life,  which,  how- 


100  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

ever,  the  relic-worshippers,  it  must  be  confessed,  do  make 
share  in  it.  But  Heinrich  not  only  professes  to  see  this 
logical  nexus,  but  hangs  the  whole  case  for  the  propriety 
of  the  veneration  of  relics  upon  it.  In  that  case,  however, 
the  veneration  of  the  relic  is  not  purely  relative;  there  is 
something  in  the  relic  as  such  which  calls  for  reverence. 
It  is  not  merely  a  symbol  through  which  the  saint,  now 
separated  from  it,  is  approached,  but  a  part  of  the  saint, 
though  an  inferior  part,  in  which  the  saint  is  immediately 
reached.  "The  Christian,"  says  Heinrich  himself,90  "  recog- 
nizes in  the  body  of  the  martyr,  of  the  saint,  more  than  a 
mere  instrument  of  the  soul;  it  is,  as  our  faith  teaches  us, 
the  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  it  was  the  sacred  vessel  of 
grace  in  life;  it  is  to  be  glorified  in  unity  again  with  the 
glorified  soul."  Such  scholastic  distinctions  as  that  be- 
tween direct  and  relative  worship — like  that  between  doulia, 
hyperdoulia,  and  latria — are,  in  any  event,  matters  purely 
for  the  schools.  They  have  no  real  meaning  for  the  actual 
transactions,  and  nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that 
throughout  the  Catholic  world  the  relics,  as  the  saints, 
have  been  continuously  looked  upon  by  the  actual  worship- 
pers, seeking  benefits  from  them,  as  themselves  the  vehicles 
of  a  supernatural  power  of  which  they  may  hopefully  avail 
themselves.91 

We  have  said  that  relics  stand  at  the  centre  of  the  miracle- 
life  of  the  church  of  Rome.  Many  are  prepared  to  go 
further.  Yrjo  Hirn,  for  example,  wishes  to  say  that  they 
stand  at  the  centre  of  the  whole  religious  life  of  the  church 
of  Rome.  He  does  not  mean  by  this  merely  that  all 
Catholic  religious  life  and  thought  centre  in  and  revolve 
around  the  miraculous.  This  is  true.  The  world-view  of 
the  Catholic  is  one  all  his  own,  and  is  very  expressly  a 
miraculous  one.  He  reckons  with  the  miraculous  in  every 
act ;  miracle  suggests  itself  to  him  as  a  natural  explanation 
of  every  event ;  and  nothing  seems  too  strange  to  him  to  be 
true.92    It  is  a  correct  picture  which  a  recent  writer  draws 


RELICS   AND   THE   ALTAR  101 

when  he  says:93  "The  really  pious  Catholic  has  a  peculiar 
passion  for  miracles.  The  extremely  numerous  accounts 
of  miraculous  healings,  not  alone  at  Lourdes;  the  multi- 
plied promises,  especially  in  the  little  Prayer  and  Pilgrim 
Books,  of  physical  healing  of  the  sick  in  reward  for  many 
offered  prayers  and  petitions;  the  enormous  credulity  of 
the  Catholic  people,  as  it  is  revealed  to  us  in  the  Leo  Taxil 
swindle — all  this  manifests  a  disposition  for  miracle-seeking 
which  is  altogether  unaffected  by  the  modern  scientific 
axiom  of  the  conformity  of  the  course  of  nature  to  law." 
To  say  that  relics  lie  at  the  centre  of  the  miracle-life  of 
Catholicism  is  not  far  from  saying  that  they  lie  at  the 
centre  of  the  Catholic  religious  life;  for  the  religious  life 
of  Catholicism  and  its  miracle-life  are  very  much  one. 
Hirn  is  thinking  here,94  however,  particularly  of  the  or- 
ganization of  Catholic  worship ;  and  what  he  sees,  or  thinks 
he  sees,  is  that  the  entirety  of  Catholic  worship  is  so  or- 
ganized as  to  gather  really  around  the  relic-chest.  For  the 
altar,  as  it  has  developed  in  the  Roman  ritual,  has  become, 
he  says,  in  the  process  of  the  years,  the  coffin  enclosing  the 
bones  of  a  saint;  and  that  is  the  fundamental  reason  why 
the  rule  has  long  been  in  force  that  every  altar  shall  con- 
tain a  relic,95  and  that  a  Gregory  of  Tours,  for  example, 
when  speaking  of  the  altar  can  call  it,  not  "ara"  or  "altare," 
but  "area,"  that  is  to  say,  box  or  ark.  Catholic  piety,  thus 
expressing  itself  in  worship,  has  found  its  centre  in  a  sealed 
case;  for  the  table  for  the  mass  is  not  a  piece  of  furniture 
which  has  been  placed  in  a  building,  but  a  nucleus  around 
which  the  building  has  been  formed,  and  the  table  for 
the  mass  has  become  nothing  more  or  less  than  "a  chest 
which  guards  the  precious  relics  of  a  saint."  Thus,  "the 
ideas  connected  with  the  abode  of  the  dead  remain  for  all 
time  bound  up  with  the  church's  principal  place  of  wor- 
ship." "  Saint- worship  has  little  by  little  mingled  with  the 
mass-ritual,  and  the  mass-table  itself  has  been  finally 
transformed  into  a  saint's  shrine."96 


102  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

Enthroned  though  it  thus  be  at  the  centre  of  the  miracle- 
life,  and  with  it  of  the  religious  life,  of  the  church  of 
Rome,97  the  cult  of  relics,  nevertheless,  does  not  absorb 
into  itself  the  entirety  of  either  the  one  or  the  other.  It 
has  one  rival  which  shares  with  it  even  its  central  position, 
and  in  our  own  day  threatens  to  relegate  it,  in  some  sec- 
tions of  the  Catholic  world  at  least,  to  the  background. 
This  is  the  cult  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  whose  legend  has  in- 
corporated into  itself  all  other  legends,98  and  whose  power 
eclipses  and  seems  sometimes  almost  on  the  point  of  super- 
seding all  other  powers.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  it  may 
almost  be  said  that  the  saints  have  had  their  day  and  the 
future  belongs  to  Mary.  It  is  to  her,  full  of  grace,  Queen, 
Mother  of  Mercy,  our  Life,  our  Sweetness,  our  Hope,99 
that  men  now  call  for  relief  in  all  their  distresses,  and  it 
is  to  her  shrines  that  the  great  pilgrim-bands  of  the  afflicted 
now  turn  their  steps.100  These  shrines  are  not  ordinarily 
relic-shrines.  Mary  had  her  "assumption"  as  her  divine 
Son  had  His  "ascension";  she  has  left  behind  her  no 
grave,  no  body,  no  bodily  parts  to  be  distributed  severally 
through  the  earth.  Her  relics  consist  exclusively  of  ex- 
ternal things:  of  her  hair,  her  milk,  the  clothes  she  wore, 
the  house  she  dwelt  in.  They  have  had  their  part  to  play 
— a  very  great  part — in  the  history  of  the  relic-cult  and  of 
pilgrimages;  as  have  also  miraculous  images  of  her.  But 
the  chief  source  of  the  newer  shrines  of  Mary  which  have 
been  founded  one  after  another  in  these  latter  days,  and 
have  become  one  after  another  the  goal  of  extensive  pil- 
grimages and  the  seat  of  innumerable  miracles  of  healing, 
has  been  a  series  of  apparitions  of  Mary,  which  have  fol- 
lowed one  another  with  bewildering  rapidity  until  they  have 
almost  seemed  to  become  epidemic  in  France  at  least — in 
France,  because  France  is  the  land  of  Mary  as  Italy  is  the 
land  of  the  saints. 

Let  us  put  side  by  side  these  four  apparitions:  La  Salette 
(1846),  where  the  Virgin  appeared  as  a  "beautiful  lady" 


APPARITIONS   OF   MARY  103 

to  two  shepherd  children,  a  girl  and  boy,  aged  respectively 
fifteen  and  eleven;  Lourdes  (1858),  where  she  appeared  as 
"a  girl  in  white,  no  bigger  than  me,"  to  a  little  country- 
bred  girl  of  fourteen;    Pellevoisin  (1876),  where  she  ap- 
peared as  "  the  Mother  All-Merciful "  to  an  ill  serving-maid ; 
Le  Pontinet  (1889),  where  she  appeared  as  the  Queen  of 
Heaven,  first  to  a  little  country  girl  of  eleven,  and  then  to 
a  considerable  number  of  others  infected  by  her  example. 
The  last  of  these  was  disallowed  by  the  ecclesiastical  au- 
thorities, and  has  had  no  wide-spread  effects.101    The  other 
three  are  woven  together  in  the  popular  fancy  into  a  single 
rich  chaplet  for  Mary's  brow.     "Each  of  the  series  of  ap- 
paritions of  the  Blessed  Virgin  in  this  century,"  we  read  in 
a  popular  article  published  in  the  early  nineties,102  "bears 
a  distinct  character.    At  La  Salette  Mary  appeared  in 
sorrow,  and  displaying  the  instruments  of  the  Passion  on 
her  heart;    at  Lourdes,  with  a  gold  and  white  rosary  in 
her  hands,  and  with  golden  roses  on  her  feet,  she  smiled  at 
the  child  Bernadette;    at  Pellevoisin  she  appeared  in  a 
halo  of  light,  surrounded  by  a  garland  of  roses,  and  wearing 
on  her  breast  the  scapular  of  the  Sacred  Heart."    In  each 
instance  a  new  cult  has  been  inaugurated,  a  new  shrine 
set  up,  a  new  pilgrimage  put  on  foot  with  the  highest  en- 
thusiasm of  devotion,  and  with  immense  results  in  miracles 
of  healing— all  of  which  accrue  to  the  glory  of  Mary,  the 
All-Merciful  Mother  of  God.103 

Among  these  apparitions,  that  at  Lourdes  easily  takes 
the  first  place  in  point  of  historical  importance.  "Un- 
doubtedly the  greatest  stimulus  to  Marian  devotion  in 
recent  times,"  writes  Herbert  Thurston,104  "has  been  af- 
forded by  the  apparition  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  in  1858  at 
Lourdes,  and  in  the  numberless  supernatural  favors  granted 
to  pilgrims  both  there  and  at  other  shrines  that  derive 
from  it."  No  doubt  the  way  was  prepared  for  this  effect 
by  previous  apparitions  of  similar  character,  at  La  Salette, 
for  example,  and  perhaps  above  all  by  those  to  Zoe  Laboure 


104  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

(Sister  Catherine  in  religion)  in  1836,  the  external  symbol 
of  which  was  the  famous  "Miraculous  Medal,"  which  has 
wrought  wonders  in  the  hands  of  the  Sisters  of  Charity.105 
And  no  doubt  the  impetus  given  by  Lourdes  has  been  re- 
inforced by  similar  movements  which  have  come  after  it, 
as,  for  example,  by  that  growing  out  of  the  apparitions  at 
Pellevoisin — whose  panegyrists,  however,  praise  it  sig- 
nificantly only  as  "a  second  Lourdes."  Meanwhile,  it  is 
Lourdes  which  occupies  the  proud  position  of  the  greatest 
shrine  of  miraculous  healing  in  the  world.  We  may  pre- 
dict the  fading  of  its  glory  in  the  future,  as  the  glory  of 
other  healing  shrines  in  the  past  has  faded.  But  there  is 
nothing  apparent  to  sustain  this  prediction  beyond  this 
bare  analogy.  We  fear  it  is  only  the  wish  which  has 
fathered  the  thought,  when  we  find  it  put  into  somewhat 
exaggerated  language  by  a  French  medical  writer,  thus:106 
"Let  us  see  what  has  happened  during  a  century  only,  in 
the  most  venerated  sanctuaries  of  France.  No  more  mir- 
acles at  Chartres !  Insignificant  miracles  at  Notre  Dame  de 
Fourvieres  at  Lyons.  La  Salette,  incapable  of  the  smallest 
cure,  after  having  shone  with  an  incomparable  lustre. 
Paray-le-monial  become  useless  in  spite  of  the  chemise  of 
Marie  Alacoque.  To-day  it  is  Lourdes  which  is  the  re- 
ligious vogue;  it  is  to  Lourdes  that  the  crowds  demanding 
miracles  go — waiting  for  Lourdes  to  disappear  like  the  other 
shrines,  when  the  faith  of  believers  gradually  fades  like  the 
flame  of  a  candle  coming  to  an  end." 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  beginnings  of  Lourdes  were 
not  such  as  might  have  been  expected  of  a  great  miraculous 
agency  entering  the  world.  It  is  possible  to  say,  it  is  true, 
that  they  were  better  than  has  been  the  case  in  some  similar 
instances.  Bernadette  Soubirous  seems  to  have  been  a 
good  child,  and  she  seems  to  have  grown  into  a  good,  if  a 
somewhat  colorless,  not  to  say  weak,  and  certainly  very 
diseased,  woman.  The  scandals  of  La  Salette  did  not  re- 
peat themselves  in  her  case.107    And  perhaps  she  cannot 


THE  APPARITION   AT  LOURDES  105 

be  spoken  of  with  the  same  energy  as  "the  little  seer"  of 
Le  Pontinet,  as  the  child  of  degenerated  parents,  weighted 
with  the  burden  of  bad  heredity.108  But  it  is  a  matter 
only  of  degree.  Bernadette's  parentage  was  not  of  the 
best  omen;  in  her  person  she  was,  if  not  a  degenerate,  yet 
certainly  a  defective.  It  is  of  such  that  the  Virgin  appar- 
ently avails  herself  in  her  visions.109  Nor  does  the  vision 
itself  reassure  us.  "The  figure  seen  was  one  which,  by  the 
admission,  we  believe,  of  the  Catholic  clergy  themselves, 
has  been  often  reported  as  seen,  mainly  by  young  girls, 
under  circumstances  when  no  objective  value  whatever 
could  be  attributed  to  the  apparition."  n0  The  communica- 
tions made  by  the  heavenly  visitant,  one  would  prefer  to 
believe  the  dreams  of  the  defective  child.  "As  the  times, 
so  the  saints,"  remarks  Heinrich  Giinter,111  with  a  very 
obvious  meaning;  and  it  may  be  added  with  an  equally 
direct  meaning:  As  the  saints  so  the  messages.  Doctor 
Boissarie,  it  is  true,  seeks  to  forestall  criticism  by  boldly 
affirming  that  the  message  given  to  Bernadette  was  lofty 
beyond  the  possibility  of  her  invention:112  "The  name  of 
the  Virgin,  the  words  which  she  uttered — all  is  out  of  pro- 
portion to  the  percipient's  intelligence.  Remembering  the 
formal  principle,  admitted  by  all  authorities,  'A  hallucina- 
tion is  never  more  than  a  reminiscence  of  a  sensation  al- 
ready perceived,'  it  is  evident  that  the  intelligence  and  the 
memory  of  Bernadette  could  never  have  received  the  image 
or  heard  the  echo  of  what  she  received  and  heard  at  the 
grotto."  To  which  the  Messrs.  Myers  very  properly  re- 
spond:113 "Doctor  Boissarie  does  not  tell  us  whether  it  is 
the  divine  command  to  kiss  the  earth  for  sinners,  or  the 
divine  command  to  eat  grass,  which  is  beyond  the  intelli- 
gence of  a  simple  child.  He  dwells  only  on  the  phrase,  '  I 
am  the  Immaculate  Conception' ;  and  we  may  indeed  admit 
that  this  particular  mode  of  reproducing  the  probably  often- 
heard  statement  that  the  Virgin  was  conceived  without 
sin  does  indicate  a  mind  which  is  either  supra  or  infra 


106  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

grammaticam."  The  plain  fact  is  that  the  communica- 
tions attributed  to  the  Virgin  are  silly  with  the  silliness  of 
a  backward  child,  repeating,  without  in  the  least  compre- 
hending their  meaning,  phrases  with  which  the  air  was 
palpitant;  it  was  in  1854  that  the  dogma  of  the  Immacu- 
late Conception  of  Mary  was  proclaimed  in  circumstances 
which  shook  the  whole  Catholic  world  with  emotional 
tremors,  some  waves  of  which  could  not  have  failed  to 
reach  even  Bernadette.  The  immense  success  of  Lourdes 
as  a  place  of  pilgrimage  has  been  achieved  in  spite  of  the 
meanness  of  its  origin,  and  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  skill 
with  which  it  has  been  exploited.  Under  this  exploita- 
tion, it  has  distanced  all  its  rivals,  superseded  all  its  pred- 
ecessors, and  has  ended  by  becoming  the  greatest  healing 
shrine  in  the  world,  counting  the  pilgrims  who  annually 
resort  to  it  by  the  hundreds  of  thousands,  and  now  even, 
so  we  are  told,  by  the  million.114 

We  cannot  doubt  that  it  is  a  true  picture  of  Lourdes  in 
its  total  manifestation,  which  is  given  by  Emile  Zola  in  his 
great  novel.115  He  describes  the  colossal  national  pil- 
grimage which  gathers  there  each  August  in  an  epic  of 
human  suffering.  Looked  at  thus,  it  is  a  most  moving 
spectacle.  "It  is  difficult  to  remain  strictly  philosophical," 
writes  an  English  physician  after  witnessing  the  scene;116 
"impossible  to  be  coarsely  sceptical  in  that  strange  assem- 
bly. Hard  indeed  would  be  the  heart  of  any  medical  man 
which  could  remain  unmoved  by  the  sight  which  met  my 
eyes  that  day.  At  no  other  spot  in  the  wide  world  could 
the  faculty  behold  at  a  glance  so  many  of  its  failures.  .  .  . 
Out  of  the  thousands  of  pilgrims  I  could  detect  but  few  who 
were  evidently  of  the  poorest  class;  for  the  most  part  they 
were  of  the  upper  middle  classes  or,  at  least,  well-to-do.  .  .  . 
Surely  so  much  misery  has  at  no  other  spot  been  focussed 
in  so  small  a  space."  It  is,  indeed,  an  "  army  of  incurables  " 
which  gathers  every  year  to  Lourdes,  driven  to  their  last 
recourse.    But  of  course  not  all  the  enormous  masses  of 


THE   CURES  AT  LOURDES  107 

pilgrims  are  seeking  healing.  Lourdes  does  not  register  her 
failures;  the  proportion  of  her  pilgrims  who  are  seeking 
healing,  the  proportion  of  those  seeking  healing  who  are 
healed,  can  only  be  guessed.  The  late  Monsignor  R.  H. 
Benson,  speaking  of  the  great  masses  of  the  national  pil- 
grimage, says,  no  doubt  somewhat  loosely:117  "Hardly  one 
in  a  thousand  of  these  come  to  be  cured  of  any  sickness." 
During  the  twenty  years  from  1888  to  1907,  inclusive,  the 
whole  number  of  cures  recorded  was  2,665,118  which  yields 
a  yearly  average  of  about  133. 119  It  is  generally  under- 
stood that  about  90  per  cent  of  those  seeking  cure  go  away 
unbenefited,120  and  this  would  lead  us  to  suppose  that  be- 
tween 1300  and  1400  seek  healing  at  Lourdes  annually. 
Georges  Bertrin  tells  us121  that  up  to  1908 — the  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  the  vision — some  10,000,000  of  pilgrims  had 
visited  Lourdes,  and  that  the  whole  number  of  cures, 
"whether  partial  or  complete,"  registered  during  that  time 
was  3,962.  He  thinks  that  nearly  as  many  more  may  have 
been  wrought  but  not  registered ;  let  us  say,  then,  that  there 
may  have  been  some  8,000  cures  in  all  during  this  half- 
century — "whether  partial  or  complete."  Absolutely  this 
is  a  great  number;  but  proportionately  to  the  numbers  of 
pilgrims,  not  very  large:  about  one  cure  being  registered 
to  every  2,500  visitors,  not  more  than  one  cure  to  every 
1,250  visitors  being  even  conjecturable.  How  many  fail- 
ures stand  over  against  these  4,000  to  8,000  cures  we  have 
no  means  of  estimating;  but  if  the  proportion  of  90  per 
cent  seeking  cure  be  right,  they  would  mount  to  the  great 
number  of  some  50,000.  The  heart  sinks  when  it  contem- 
plates this  enormous  mass  of  disappointment  and  despair  122 
There  are  certain  other  circumstances  connected  with 
the  cures  of  Lourdes,  which,  on  the  supposition  of  their 
miraculousness,  evoke  some  surprise.  The  Bureau  of 
Constatation  exhibits  at  times  a  certain  shyness  of  expect- 
ing too  much  of  a  miracle — a  shyness  quite  absent,  it  is 
true,  on  other  occasions,  when,  as  it  appears,  anything 


108  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

could  be  expected.  We  read,123  for  example,  of  a  case  of 
apparent  hip-disease,  and  it  was  said  that  one  leg  had  been 
seven  centimetres  shorter  than  the  other;  while  now,  after 
the  cure,  "the  legs  were  of  an  exactly  equal  length."  The 
cure  was  not  admitted  to  registry,  but  was  referred  back 
for  further  investigation.  "The  doctors  shook  their  heads 
considerably  over  the  seven  centimetres";  "seven  centi- 
metres was  almost  too  large  a  measure  to  be  believed." 
Why — if  it  was  a  miracle  ?  And,  after  all,  would  the  pro- 
longation of  a  leg  by  seven  centimetres  be  any  more  mirac- 
ulous than  the  prolongation  of  it  by  six — or  by  one  ?  Stress 
is  sometimes  laid  on  the  instantaneousness124  of  the  cures 
as  proof  of  their  miraculousness.  But  they  are  not  all 
instantaneous.  We  read  repeatedly  in  the  records  of  slow 
and  gradual  cures:  "At  the  second  bath  she  began  to  im- 
prove"; "at  the  fourth  bath  the  cure  was  complete."125 
Indeed  the  cures  are  not  always  ever  completed.  Gabriel 
Gargam,  for  example,  one  of  Bertrin's  crucial  cases,  he 
tells  us,126  "bears  a  slight  trace  of  his  old  infirmity  as  the 
guarantee  of  its  erstwhile  existence.  He  feels  a  certain 
weakness  in  his  back  at  the  spot  where  Doctor  Tessier  sup- 
posed that  a  vertebra  was  pressing  on  the  medulla."  Sim- 
ilarly in  the  case  of  Madame  Rouchel,  a  case  of  facial  lupus, 
and  another  of  Bertrin's  crucial  cases,  "a  slight  ulceration 
of  the  inside  of  the  upper  lip,"  he  says,127  "remained  after 
the  cure."  These  cases  are  not  exceptional:  Bertrin  in- 
forms us128  that  it  is  quite  common  for  traces  of  the  in- 
firmity to  remain.  He  even  discovers  the  rationale  of  this. 
It  keeps  the  cured  person  in  grateful  memory  of  the  benefit 
received.129  And  it  is  even  a  valuable  proof  that  the  cure 
is  truly  miraculous.  For,  do  you  not  see?130  "had  the  dis- 
ease been  nervous  and  functional,  and  not  organic,  every- 
thing would  have  disappeared;  all  the  functions  being  re- 
paired, the  disease  would  not  have  left  any  special  trace." 
This  reasoning  is  matched  by  that  into  which  Bertrin  is 
betrayed  when  made  by  the  physicians  of  Metz — Madame 


IMPERFECT  MIRACLES  109 

Rouchel's  home — really  to  face  the  question  whether  she 
had  been  cured  at  all.  They  pointed  out  that  the  lip  was 
imperfectly  healed.  Bertrin  cries  out131  that  the  "ques- 
tion was  not  whether  a  slight  inflammation  of  the  lip  re- 
mained, but  whether  the  two  perforations  which  had  existed 
in  the  cheek  and  roof  of  the  mouth  before  going  to  Lourdes 
had  been  suddenly  closed  on  Saturday,  September  6."  The 
physicians  point  out  inexorably  that  this  is  to  reverse  the 
value  of  the  symptoms  and  to  mistake  the  nature  of  their 
producing  causes,  and  record  the  two  findings:  (i)  that  the 
lupus  was  not  healed ;  (2)  that  the  closing  of  the  two  fistulas 
in  twelve  days  was  not  extraordinary.  This  celebrated 
case  thus  passes  into  the  category  of  a  scandal.132 

It  must  remain  astonishing,  in  any  event,  that  miracles 
should  be  frequently  incomplete.  We  should  a  priori  ex- 
pect miraculous  cures  to  be  regularly  radical.  No  doubt 
we  are  not  judges  beforehand  how  God  should  work.  But 
it  is  not  wrong,  when  we  are  asked  to  infer  from  the  very 
nature  of  an  effect  that  it  is  the  immediate  work  of  God, 
that  we  should  be  disturbed  by  circumstances  in  its  nature 
which  do  not  obviously  point  to  God  as  the  actor.  The 
reasons  which  Bertrin  presents  for  the  imperfections  in  the 
effects  do  not  remove  this  difficulty.  They  bear  the  ap- 
pearance of  "covering  reasons" — inventions  to  remove 
offenses.  After  all  is  said  and  done,  it  is  mere  paradox  to 
represent  the  imperfections  in  the  cures  as  evidences  of  the 
divine  action.  We  may  expect  imperfections  to  show  them- 
selves in  the  products  of  second  causes;  we  naturally  ex- 
pect perfection  in  the  immediate  operations  of  the  First 
Cause.  Bertrin  strikes  back  somewhat  waspishly  when 
Zola  makes  one  of  the  physicians  at  the  Bureau  of  Consta- 
tation  ask  "with  extreme  politeness,"  why  the  Virgin  con- 
tented herself  with  healing  a  sore  on  a  child's  foot,  leaving 
an  ugly  scar,  and  had  not  given  it  a  brand-new  foot  while 
she  was  about  it — since  "this  would  assuredly  have  given 
her  no  more  trouble."    Here,  too,  Bertrin  says133  that  the 


110  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

scar  was  left  that  it  might  be  a  standing  proof  of  the  reality 
and  greatness  of  the  miracle  of  healing  that  had  been 
wrought,  and  adds,  somewhat  unexpectedly  it  must  be 
confessed  at  this  point,  that  whatever  God  does,  He  does 
well.  Whatever  God  does,  He  certainly  does  well;  and  it 
assuredly  is  our  part  only  to  endeavor  to  understand  His 
ways.  But  when  the  question  is,  Did  God  do  it?  we  are 
not  unnaturally  puzzled  if  it  does  not  seem  obvious  that 
what  He  is  affirmed  to  have  done,  has  been  well  done.  The 
physician's  question  was  not  foolish.  It  was  the  perhaps 
not  quite  bland  expression  of  a  natural  wonder — wonder  at 
the  limitations  which  show  themselves  in  these  alleged 
miracles.  Why,  after  all,  should  miracles  show  limita- 
tions?134 

We  are  far  from  wishing  to  suggest  that  the  cures  at 
Lourdes  are  not  in  the  main  real  cures.  We  should  be  glad 
to  believe  that  the  whole  of  the  four  to  eight  thousand 
which  are  alleged  to  have  taken  place  there,  have  been 
real  cures,  and  that  this  great  host  of  sufferers  have  been 
freed  from  their  miseries.  Probably  no  one  doubts  that 
cures  are  made  at  Lourdes ;  any  more  than  men  doubt  that 
similar  cures  have  from  the  beginning  of  the  world  been 
made  in  similar  conditions  elsewhere — as  of  old  in  the 
temples  of  Asclepius,  for  example,  and  to-day  at  the  hands 
of  the  Christian  Scientists.  So  little  is  it  customary  to 
deny  that  cures  are  made  at  Lourdes  that  even  free- thinking 
French  physicians  are  accustomed  to  send  patients  there. 
Doctor  Maurice  de  Fleury  in  his  much-admired  book,  La 
Medecine  de  l' Esprit,135  writes:  "The  faith  that  heals  is 
only  suggestion;  that  makes  no  difference,  since  it  heals. 
There  is  no  one  of  us  who  has  not  sent  some  sick  woman  to 
Lourdes,  expecting  her  to  return  well."  The  same  in  effect 
is  said  by  Charcot,136  Dubois,137  even  the  polemic  Rouby. 
Rouby  even  goes  to  the  length  of  pointing  out  a  function 
which  Lourdes,  according  to  him,  may  serve  in  the  advance 
of  medical  science.     "Lourdes  has  not  been  without  its 


EXPLOITATION   OF   LOURDES  111 

value  to  contemporary  physicians,"  he  writes;138  "they 
have  had  in  it  a  great  field  for  the  study  of  hysterosis,  which 
a  large  number  of  them  have  misunderstood  or  only  par- 
tially understood.  Lourdes  has  put  neurosis  before  them 
in  a  striking  way.  Those  of  our  colleagues  who  have 
written  into  their  certificates  a  diagnosis  of  incurability, 
have  been  profoundly  disturbed  when  they  saw  their  pa- 
tients return  cured;  and  those  of  them  who  have  not  be- 
lieved in  a  miraculous  cure  have  asked  themselves  the  true 
account  of  these  cures.  They  have  come  into  actual  touch 
at  Lourdes  with  what  they  had  read  in  their  treatises  on 
various  diseases.  They  have  learned  what  hysterosis  really 
is,  and  what  a  great  role  it  has  played  and  will  play  still  in 
the  production  of  miracles;  and  they  will  sign  no  more  cer- 
tificates on  which  the  Bureau  of  Constatation  can  depend 
for  establishing  the  miraculous  character  of  cures.  This 
ignorance  of  hysterosis  on  the  part  of  physicians,  which 
has  more  than  anything  else  made  the  fortune  of  the  pil- 
grimage, will,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  no  longer  exist."  139 

Lourdes,  naturally,  repudiates  this  classification  of  her 
cures,  and  claims  a  place  apart.  She  points  to  the  unex- 
ampled multitude  of  cures  wrought  by  her;  she  points  to 
their  intrinsic  marvellousness.  The  great  number  of  cures 
wrought  at  Lourdes  is  not  due,  however,  to  any  peculiarity 
in  the  curative  power  which  she  possesses,  but  to  the  ex- 
cellence of  its  exploitation.  It  will  hardly  be  contended 
that  her  patients  are  miraculously  brought  to  Lourdes. 
That  the  power  by  which  her  cures  are  wrought  differs  in- 
trinsically from  that  at  work  elsewhere  is  not  obvious.  To 
all  appearance,  all  these  cures  are  the  same  in  kind  and 
are  the  products  of  the  same  forces  set  in  action  after  es- ' 
sentially  the  same  fashion.  These  forces  are  commonly 
summed  up,  in  large  part  at  least,  under  the  somewhat 
vague  term  "suggestion."  The  term  is,  perhaps,  not  a 
very  good  one  for  the  particular  circumstances,  and  must 
be  understood  when  used  in  this  connection  in  a  very  wide 


112  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

sense.  It  means  at  bottom  that  the  immediate  curative 
agency  is  found  in  mental  states  induced  in  the  patient, 
powerfully  reacting,  under  the  impulse  of  high  exaltation, 
on  his  bodily  functioning.140  With  his  eye  precisely  on 
Lourdes,  J.  M.  Charcot  sketches  with  a  few  bold  strokes 
the  working  of  this  suggestion  in  the  mind  of  the  patient. 
"In  a  general  way,"  he  says,141  "the  faith-cure  does  not 
develop  the  whole  of  its  healing  force  spontaneously.  If 
an  invalid  hears  a  report  that  miraculous  cures  take  place 
in  such  and  such  a  shrine,  it  is  very  rarely  that  he  yields 
to  the  temptation  to  go  there  at  once.  A  thousand  material 
difficulties  stand,  at  least  temporarily,  in  the  way  of  his 
moving ;  it  is  no  light  matter  for  a  paralytic  or  a  blind  man, 
however  well  off  he  be,  to  start  on  a  long  journey.  He  ques- 
tions his  friends;  he  demands  circumstantial  accounts  of 
the  wonderful  cures  of  which  rumor  has  spoken.  He  re- 
ceives nothing  but  encouragement,  not  only  from  his  imme- 
diate surroundings,  but  often  even  from  his  doctor,  who  is 
unwilling  to  deprive  his  patient  of  his  last  hope,  especially 
if  he  believes  his  malady  to  be  amenable  to  the  faith-cure 
— a  remedy  which  he  has  not  dared  to  prescribe  himself. 
Besides,  the  only  effect  of  contradiction  would  be  to  heighten 
the  patient's  belief  in  a  miraculous  cure.  The  faith-cure 
is  now  born,  and  it  continues  to  develop.  The  forming  of 
the  plan,  the  preparation,  the  pilgrimage,  become  an  idee 
fixe.  The  poor  humiliate  themselves  to  ask  alms  to  enable 
them  to  reach  the  holy  spot;  the  rich  become  generous 
toward  the  poor  in  the  hope  of  propitiating  the  godhead; 
each  and  all  pray  with  fervor,  and  entreat  for  their  cure. 
Under  these  conditions  the  mind  is  not  slow  to  obtain  mas- 
tery over  the  body.  When  the  latter  has  been  shaken  by 
a  fatiguing  journey  the  patients  arrive  at  the  shrine  in  a 
state  of  mind  eminently  receptive  of  suggestion.  'The 
mind  of  the  invalid,'  says  Barwell,  'being  dominated  by 
the  firm  conviction  that  a  cure  will  be  effected,  a  cure  is 
effected  forthwith.'    One  last  effort — an  immersion  at  the 


SUGGESTION  AT  LOURDES  113 

pool,  a  last  most  fervent  prayer,  aided  by  the  ecstasy  pro- 
duced by  the  solemn  rites — and  the  faith-cure  produces 
the  desired  results;  the  miraculous  healing  becomes  an 
accomplished  fact." 

If  any  one  wishes  to  feel  the  intensity  with  which  the 
last  stages  of  this  process  of  suggestion  are  brought  to  bear 
on  the  sick  at  Lourdes,  the  perfect  art  with  which  the  whole 
dramatic  machinery  is  managed,142  he  need  only  read  a 
few  pages  of  the  description  of  Monsignor  Benson  of  what 
he  saw  at  Lourdes.  Like  Bertrin,143  Benson  scoffs  at  the 
notion  that  "suggestion"  can  be  thought  of  as  the  impul- 
sive cause  of  the  cures;  but  like  Bertrin  he  defines  sugges- 
tion in  too  narrow  a  sense  and  no  one  pictures  more  vividly 
than  he  does  suggestion  at  work.  Here  is  his  description 
of  the  great  procession  and  blessing  of  the  sick.144 

"The  crowd  was  past  describing.  Here  about  us  was 
a  vast  concourse  of  men;  and  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach 
down  the  huge  oval,  and  far  away  beyond  the  crowned 
statue,  and  on  either  side  back  to  the  Bureau  on  the  left, 
and  on  the  slopes  to  the  right,  stretched  an  inconceivable 
pavement  of  heads.  Above  us,  too,  on  every  terrace  and 
step,  back  to  the  doors  of  the  great  basilica,  we  knew  very 
well,  was  one  seething,  singing  mob.  A  great  space  was 
kept  open  on  the  level  ground  beneath  us — I  should  say 
one  hundred  by  two  hundred  yards  in  area — and  the  inside 
fringe  of  this  was  composed  of  the  sick,  in  litters,  in  chairs, 
standing,  sitting,  lying,  and  kneeling.  It  was  at  the 
farther  end  that  the  procession  would  enter. 

"After  perhaps  half  an  hour's  waiting,  during  which  one 
incessant  gust  of  singing  rolled  this  way  and  that  through 
the  crowd,  the  leaders  of  the  procession  appeared  far  away 
— little  white  or  black  figures,  small  as  dolls — and  the  sing- 
ing became  general.  But  as  the  endless  files  rolled  out, 
the  singing  ceased,  and  a  moment  later  a  priest,  standing 
solitary  in  the  great  space,  began  to  pray  aloud  in  a  voice 
like  a  silver  trumpet. 


114  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

"I  have  never  heard  such  passion  in  my  life.  I  began 
to  watch  presently,  almost  mechanically,  the  little  group 
beneath  the  ombrellino,  in  white  and  gold,  and  the  move- 
ments of  the  monstrance  blessing  the  sick;  but  again  and 
again  my  eyes  wandered  back  to  the  little  figure  in  the 
midst,  and  I  cried  out  with  the  crowd,  sentence  after  sen- 
tence, following  that  passioned  voice: 

"'Lord,  we  adore  Thee!' 

"'Lord,'  came  the  huge  response,  'we  adore  Thee.' 

"'Lord,  we  love  Thee,'  cried  the  priest. 

"'Lord,  we  love  Thee,'  answered  the  people. 

"'Save  us,  Jesus,  we  perish.' 

"'Save  us,  Jesus,  we  perish.' 

"'Jesus,  Son  of  Mary,  have  pity  on  us/ 

"'Jesus,  Son  of  Mary,  have  pity  on  us.' 

"Then,  with  a  surge  rose  up  the  plain-song  melody: 

"'Spare,  O  Lord,'  sang  the  people,  'spare  Thy  people! 
Be  not  angry  with  us  forever.' 

"Again: 

" '  Glory  to  the  Father,  and  to  the  Son,  and  to  the  Holy 
Spirit.' 

"'As  it  was  in  the  beginning,  is  now  and  ever  shall  be, 
world  without  end,  Amen.' 

"Then  again  the  single  voice  and  the  multitudinous  an- 
swer: 

"'Thou  art  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life!' 

"And  then  an  adjuration  to  her  whom  He  gave  to  be 
our  Mother: 

"'Mother  of  the  Saviour,  pray  for  us.' 

"'Salvation  of  the  weak,  pray  for  us.' 

"Then  once  more  the  singing;  then  the  cry,  more  touch- 
ing than  all: 

'"Lord,  heal  our  sick!' 

"'Lord,  heal  our  sick!' 

"Then  the  kindling  that  brought  the  blood  to  ten  thou- 
sand faces: 


SUGGESTION  AT  WORK  115 


CIC 


'Hosanna!  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David ! '  (I  shook 
to  hear  it.) 

"'Hosanna  !'  cried  the  priest,  rising  from  his  knees,  with 
arms  flung  wide. 

"'Hosanna!'  roared  the  people,  swift  as  an  echo. 

"'Hosanna!  Hosanna!'  crashed  out  again  and  again, 
like  great  artillery. 

"Yet  there  was  no  movement  among  those  piteous  pros- 
trate lines.  The  bishop,  the  ombrellino  over  him,  passed 
on  slowly  round  the  circle;  and  the  people  cried  to  Him 
whom  he  bore,  as  they  cried  two  thousand  years  ago  on  the 
road  to  the  city  of  David.  Surely  He  will  be  pitiful  upon 
this  day — the  Jubilee  Year  of  His  Mother's  graciousness, 
the  octave  of  her  assumption  to  sit  with  Him  on  His  throne ! 

"'Mother  of  the  Saviour,  pray  for  us.' 

"'Jesus,  Thou  art  my  Lord  and  my  God.' 

"Yet  there  was  no  movement.  .  .  . 

"The  end  was  now  coming  near.  The  monstrance  had 
reached  the  image  once  again,  and  was  advancing  down  the 
middle.  The  voice  of  the  priest  grew  more  persistent  still, 
as  he  tossed  his  arms,  and  cried  for  mercy: 

"'Jesus,  have  pity  on  us,  have  pity  on  us !' 

"And  the  people,  frantic  with  ardor  and  desire,  answered 
him  with  a  voice  of  thunder: 

"'Have  pity  on  us !    Have  pity  on  us !' 

"And  now  up  the  steps  came  the  grave  group  to  where 
Jesus  would  at  least  bless  His  own,  though  He  would  not 
heal  them ;  and  the  priest  in  the  midst,  with  one  last  cry, 
gave  glory  to  Him  who  must  be  served  through  whatever 
misery: 

"'Hosanna !    Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David !' 

"Surely  that  must  touch  the  Sacred  Heart!  Will  not 
His  Mother  say  one  word? 

"'Hosanna!    Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David!' 

"'Hosanna!'  cried  the  priest. 

"'Hosanna!'  cried  the  people. 


116  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

"'Hosanna!    Hosanna!    Hosanna!  .  .  .' 

"One  articulate  roar  of  disappointed  praise,  and  then — 
Tantum  ergo  Sacramentumt   rose  in  its  solemnity." 

There  was  no  miracle,  and  Benson  thinks  that  that  is 
sufficient  proof  that  the  miracles  are  not  wrought  by  "sug- 
gestion." "If  ever  'suggestion*  could  work  a  miracle," 
he  says,  "it  must  work  one  now."  But  this  was  only  the 
day  of  preparation,  and  the  fever  planted  in  the  blood  was 
working.  And  the  next  day  the  miracles  came.145  "The 
crowd  was  still,  very  still,  answering  as  before  the  passion- 
ate voice  in  the  midst;  but  watching,  watching,  as  I 
watched.  .  .  .  The  white  spot  moved  on  and  on,  and  all 
else  was  motionless.  I  knew  that  beyond  it  lay  the  sick. 
'Lord,  if  it  be  possible — if  it  be  possible!  Nevertheless, 
not  my  will  but  Thine  be  done.'  It  had  reached  now  the 
end  of  the  first  line. 

"'Lord,  heal  our  sick/  cried  the  priest. 

"'Lord,  heal  our  sick,'  answered  the  people. 

"'Thou  art  my  Lord  and  my  God!' 

"And  then  on  a  sudden  it  came. 

"Overhead  lay  the  quiet  summer  air,  charged  with  the 
supernatural  as  a  cloud  with  thunder — electric,  vibrating 
with  power.  Here  beneath,  lay  souls  thirsting  for  its  touch 
of  fire — patient,  desirous,  infinitely  pathetic;  and  in  the 
midst  that  Power,  incarnate  for  us  men  and  our  salvation. 
Then  it  descended  swift  and  mightily. 

"I  saw  a  sudden  swirl  in  the  crowd  of  heads  beneath  the 
church  steps,  and  then  a  great  shaking  ran  through  the 
crowd ;  but  there  for  a  few  instants  it  boiled  like  a  pot.  A 
sudden  cry  had  broken  out,  and  it  ran  through  the  whole 
space;  waxing  in  volume  as  it  ran,  till  the  heads  beneath 
my  window  shook  with  it  also;  hands  clapped,  voices 
shouted,  'A  miracle!    A  miracle!'" 

The  tension  thus  broken,  of  course  other  miracles  fol- 
lowed. And  Benson  says  he  does  not  see  what  "sugges- 
tion" had  to  do  with  them ! 


LOURDES'S   STAR   CASES  117 

We  feel  no  impulse  to  insist  on  the  word,  "suggestion" 
as  if  it  were  a  magic  formula,  which  accounts  with  com- 
pleteness for  all  the  cures  wrought  at  Lourdes.  We  should 
be  perfectly  willing  to  admit,  on  good  reason  being  given 
for  the  admission,  that,  after  all  the  cures  which  can  be 
fairly  brought  under  this  formula  have  been  brought  under 
it,  a  residuum  may  remain  for  the  account  of  which  we 
should  look  further.  We  do  not  ourselves  think  that  we 
are  much  advanced  in  the  explanation  of  these  residuum 
cases,  if  they  exist,  by  postulating  "a  transferrence  of  vital- 
izing force  either  from  the  energetic  faith  of  the  sufferers, 
or  from  that  of  the  bystanders" — as  Benson  intimates  that 
Alexis  Carrel  was  inclined  to  recommend.146  At  bottom, 
this  is  only  a  theory,  and  it  does  not  seem  to  us  a  very 
complete  theory,  of  how  "suggestion"  acts.  Let  us  leave 
that  to  further  investigation.  For  our  part,  we  prefer  just 
to  leave  these  residuum  cases  themselves,  if  they  exist,  to 
this  further  investigation.  We  feel  no  necessity  laid  on 
us  to  explain  them  meanwhile.  Bertrin  makes  himself 
merry147  over  the  appeal,  for  their  explanation,  to  the  work- 
ing of  "unknown  forces"  as  a  mere  shift  to  avoid  acknowl- 
edging the  presence  of  the  supernatural.  But  surely  we 
cannot  pretend  to  a  complete  knowledge  of  all  the  forces 
which  may  work  toward  a  cure  in  such  conditions  as  are 
present  at  Lourdes.  Unknown  forces  are  assuredly  existent, 
and  it  is  not  unnatural  to  think  of  them  when  effects  occur, 
the  causes  of  which  are  unknown.  Meanwhile  residuum 
cases  suggesting  reference  to  them,  if  they  exist  at  all,  are 
certainly  very  few.  Doctor  E.  Mackey  in  a  very  sensible 
article  published  a  few  years  ago  in  The  Dublin  Review, us 
seems  inclined  to  rest  the  case  for  recognizing  their  exist- 
ence on  three  instances.  These  are  the  cures  of  Pierre  de 
Rudder,  of  a  broken  bone;  of  Joachine  Dehant,  of  a  dislo- 
cation ;  and  of  Francois  Macary,  of  a  varicose  vein.  "  Such 
cases,"  he  says,149  .  .  .  "cannot  cure  themselves,  and  no 
amount  of  faith  and  hope  that  the  mind  of  man  can  imagine 


118  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

will  unite  a  broken  bone,  reduce  a  dislocation,  or  obliterate 
a  varicose  vein.  Such  cases  cannot  be  paralleled  by  any 
medical  experience,  or  imitated  by  any  therapeutic  resource, 
and  are  as  far  removed  from  its  future  as  its  present  possi- 
bilities. To  the  sceptic  we  may  give  without  argument 
the  whole  range  of  nerve  disorders,  but  what  explanation 
is  there  of  the  sudden  and  permanent  cure  of  an  organic 
lesion?  What,  but  the  working  of  the  uncovered  finger 
of  God?" 

The  cases  selected  by  Doctor  Mackey  are  famous  cases. 
That  of  Pierre  de  Rudder  may  be  said,  in  fact,  to  be 
Lourdes's  star  case,  and  is  found  duly  set  forth  in  detail  at 
the  head  of  well-nigh  every  argument  for  the  miraculousness 
of  the  Lourdes  cures.  Perhaps  Doctor  Mackey  might  just 
as  well  have  contented  himself  with  appealing  to  it  alone. 
Its  salient  features  are  that  what  was  healed  in  it  was  a  frac- 
ture of  long  standing  of  both  bones  of  the  lower  leg,  just 
below  the  knee,  the  two  parts  of  the  broken  bone  piercing 
the  flesh  and  being  separated  by  a  suppurating  wound  an 
inch  long.  The  healing  was  instantaneous.  We  have 
never  seen  a  satisfactory  natural  explanation  of  how  this 
cure  was  effected.  If  the  facts,  in  all  their  details  as  pub- 
lished— say  in  Bertrin's  extended  account, — are  authentic, 
it  seems  fairly  impossible  to  imagine  how  it  was  effected. 
Doctor  Rouby,  it  is  true,  offers  a  very  plausible  explana- 
tion of  the  healing,  but,  to  make  it  plausible,  he  is  com- 
pelled to  assume  that  some  of  the  minor  details  are  not 
quite  accurately  reported.150  We  prefer  simply  to  leave  it, 
meanwhile,  unexplained.  Do  you  cry  out  that  we  are 
bound  to  supply  a  satisfactory  natural  explanation  of  it, 
or  else  acknowledge  that  a  miracle  has  taken  place  in  this 
case  ?  We  feel  no  difficulty  in  declining  the  dilemma.  The 
healing  of  Pierre  de  Rudder's  leg  is  not  the  only  thing  that 
has  occurred  in  the  world  of  the  mode  of  the  occurrence  of 
which  we  are  ignorant.  After  all,  inexplicable  and  mirac-  V 
ulous  are  not  exact  synonyms,  and  nobody  really  thinks 


.    INEXPLICABLE   AND   MIRACULOUS  119 

that  they  are.     Is  it  wrong  suddenly  to  turn  the  tables 
and  ask  those  who  would  compel  us  to  explain  Pierre  de 
Rudder's  case,  how  they  explain  Charlotte  Laborde's  case, 
which  is  certainly  far  more  wonderful  than  Pierre  de  Rud- 
der's?    Charlotte  Laborde  was  a  Jansenist  cripple  who 
had  no  legs  at  all,  as  two  surgeons  duly  testified ;  and  yet 
she  literally  had  two  good  legs  pulled  out  for  her— as  any- 
body may  read  in  Montgeron's  veracious  narrative.151    No 
doubt  it  will  be  at  once  said  that  the  thing  never  happened. 
Assuredly,  it  never  did  happen.    But  has  everybody  earned 
the  right  to  take  up  that  attitude  toward  it?    We  recog- 
nize, of  course,  that  not  all  testimony  to  marvels  can  be 
trusted— at  least  not  in  all  the  details.     It  seems  indeed 
rather  difficult  to  report  marvels  precisely  as  they  hap- 
pened, and  few  there  be  who  attain  to  it.152    We  have  seen 
that  even  an  Augustine  cannot  be  implicitly  trusted  when 
he  reports  marvels  as  occurring  within  his  own  knowledge. 
Perhaps  Doctor  Rouby  is  right  in  suggesting  that  some 
slight  errors  of  detail  have  crept  into  the  report  of  Pierre 
de  Rudder's  case;  and  that  this  marvel  too  is  one  of  the 
things  that  never  happened— precisely  as  it  is  reported. 
Our  personal  interest  in  such  adjustments,  however,  is  at 
best  languid.    In  the  nature  of  the  case  they  are  only  con- 
jectural.   We  are  only  beginning  to  learn  the  marvellous 
behavior  of  which  living  tissue  is  capable,  and  it  may  well 
be  that,  after  a  while,  it  may  seem  very  natural  that  Pierre 
de  Rudder's  case  happened  just  as  it  is  said  to  have  hap- 
pened.   We  are  afraid  to  alter  the  facts  as  witnessed  even 
a  little,  in  order  to  make  them  fit  in  better  with  the  igno- 
rance of  to-day:  and  our  guesses  of  to-day  are  sure  to  seem 
very  foolish  to-morrow.    We  do  not  busy  ourselves,  there- 
fore, with  conjecturing  how  Pierre  de  Rudder's  cure  may 
have  happened.     We  are  willing  to  believe  that  it  happened 
just  as  it  is  said  to  have  happened.    We  are  content  to 
know  that,  in  no  case,  was  it  a  miracle. 
We  must  endeavor  to  make  clear  the  grounds  on  which 


120  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

this  assertion  is  adventured.  To  do  this  we  need  to  go 
back  a  little  in  the  discussion.  We  take  it  up  again  at  the 
point  where  we  have  said  that  bare  inexplicableness  can- 
not be  accepted  as  the  sufficient  criterion  of  the  miraculous. 
There  are  many  things  which  we  cannot  explain,  and  yet 
which  nobody  supposes  to  be  miraculous.153  No  doubt  the 
appeal  to  "unknown  laws,"  hidden  forces  of  nature  not 
yet  discovered,  may  be  made  the  mark  of  an  easy  ridicule. 
Yet  we  must  not  be  stampeded  into  acknowledging  as 
sheerly  miraculous  everything  the  laws  of  whose  occurrence 
— the  forces  by  which  it  is  produced — are  inscrutable  to  us. 
Even  if  absolute  inscrutability  be  meant — inscrutability 
not  to  me  (for  my  ignorance  cannot  be  the  measure  of 
reality)  but  to  any  and  every  living  man,  or  body  of  men, 
to  any  possible  man — miracle  cannot  be  inferred  from  this 
alone.  Nature  was  made  by  God,  not  man,  and  there  may 
be  forces  working  in  nature  not  only  which  have  not  yet 
been  dreamed  of  in  our  philosophy,  but  which  are  beyond 
human  comprehension  altogether.  Simple  inexplicability, 
therefore,  is  not  an  adequate  ground  on  which  to  infer  mir- 
acle. There  must  be  something  else  about  an  occurrence 
besides  its  inexplicableness  to  justify  us  in  looking  upon  it 
as  a  direct  act  of  God's. 

Clearly,  when  we  are  bidden  to  accept  an  event  as  mirac- 
ulous merely  on  the  ground  of  its  inexplicableness,  it  is 
forgotten  that  no  event  is  merely  an  inexplicable  event. 
It  is  always  something  else  besides;  and  if  we  are  to  pass 
upon  its  origin  we  must  consider  not  merely  its  abstract 
inexplicableness  but  the  whole  concrete  fact — not  merely 
that  it  has  happened  inexplicably,  but  what  it  is  that  has 
happened  inexplicably — that  is  to  say,  not  its  bare  occur- 
rence, but  its  occurrence  in  all  its  circumstantials,  the  total 
thing  which  has  occurred.  The  healing  of  Pierre  de  Rud- 
der, for  example,  is  not  merely  an  inexplicable  happening 
(if  it  be  inexplicable)  of  which  we  need  know  no  more  than 
just  that.     It  is  the  healing  of  a  particular  individual, 


GOD   AND   BARE  OMNIPOTENCE  121 

Pierre  de  Rudder,  in  a  complex  of  particular  circumstances, 
the  whole  complicated  mass  of  which  constitutes  the  thing 
that  has  occurred.  The  cause  assigned  to  the  occurrence 
must  satisfy  not  only  its  inexplicableness,  but  also  all  these 
other  circumstances  entering  into  the  event  as  an  occur- 
rence in  time  and  space.  No  event,  occurring  in  time  and 
space — in  a  complex,  that  is,  of  other  occurrences — no 
matter  how  marvellous  it  may  seem  to  be,  how  sheerly  in- 
explicable on  natural  grounds — can  possibly  be  interpreted 
as  a  divine  act,  if  there  is  anything  about  it  at  all  in  its 
concrete  wholeness  which  cannot  be  made  consistent  with 
that  reference. 

If,  for  instance,  to  take  an  example  so  extreme  that  it 
could  not  occur,  but  one  that  may  serve  all  the  better  as 
our  illustration  on  that  account,  there  were  buried  some- 
where in  the  concrete  wholeness  of  the  occurrence  the  im- 
plication that  twice  two  are  five.  It  would  be  more  in- 
explicable that  God  should  not  know  His  multiplication 
table  than  that  any  occurrence  whatever,  however  inexplica- 
ble it  may  seem  to  us,  should  nevertheless  be  due  to  natural 
causation.  God  is  not  bare  omnipotence;  He  is  absolute 
omniscience  as  well.  He  cannot  possibly  be  the  immediate 
agent  in  an  act  in  which  a  gross  failure  of  "wisdom"  is 
apparent,  no  matter  how  difficult  it  may  be  for  us  to  ex- 
plain that  act  without  calling  in  omnipotence  as  its  pro- 
ducing cause.  Still  less  can  He  be  supposed  to  be  the  im- 
mediate actor  in  occurrences  in  which  immoralities  are 
implicated;  or,  in  which,  in  their  wholeness,  as  concrete 
facts,  there  are  embodied  implications  of,  say,  irreligion  or 
of  superstition.  Whether  we  can  see  how  such  occurrences 
are  wrought,  or  not,  we  know  from  the  outset  that  God 
did  not  work  them.  It  would  be  more  inexplicable  that 
God  should  be  directly  active  in  them  than  that  they  should 
be  the  product  of  natural  causation,  though  to  suppose 
this  to  be  the  fact  would  be  to  confound  all  our  previous 
conceptions  of  natural  causation.     Charles  Hodge  speaks 


122  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

not  a  whit  too  strongly  when  he  asserts154  that  "we  are 
not  only  authorized  but  required  to  pronounce  anathema 
an  apostle  or  angel  from  heaven  who  should  call  upon  us 
to  receive  as  a  revelation  from  God  anything  absurd  or 
wicked." 

God,  indeed,  has  Himself  forewarned  us  here.  He  has 
said:155  "If  there  arise  in  the  midst  of  thee  a  prophet  or  a 
dreamer  of  dreams,  and  he  give  thee  a  sign  and  a  wonder, 
and  the  sign  or  the  wonder  come  to  pass,  whereof  he  spake 
unto  thee,  saying,  Let  us  go  after  other  Gods,  which  thou 
hast  not  known,  and  let  us  serve  them;  thou  shalt  not 
hearken  unto  the  words  of  that  prophet  or  unto  that 
dreamer  of  dreams."  Conformity  in  their  implications  to 
what  God  has  already  revealed  of  Himself,  He  Himself 
makes  the  test  of  all  alleged  miracles.  It  would  be  more 
inexplicable  that  God  by  His  action  should  confuse  the 
revelation  which  He  has  made  of  His  Being,  of  men's  rela- 
tion to  Him,  and  of  the  duty  of  service  which  they  owe  to 
Him  and  to  Him  alone,  than  that  inexplicable  things 
should  yet  be  produced  by  natural  causation.  It  is  a 
primary  principle,  therefore,  that  no  event  can  be  really 
miraculous  which  has  implications  inconsistent  with  funda- 
mental religious  truth.  Even  though  we  should  stand 
dumb  before  the  wonders  of  Lourdes,  and  should  be  ut- 
terly incapable  of  suggesting  a  natural  causation  for  them, 
we  know  right  well  they  are  not  of  God.  The  whole 
complex  of  circumstances  of  which  they  are  a  part;  their 
origin  in  occurrences,  the  best  that  can  be  said  of  which  is 
that  they  are  silly;  their  intimate  connection  with  a  cult 
derogatory  to  the  rights  of  God  who  alone  is  to  be  called 
upon  in  our  distresses, — stamp  them,  prior  to  all  examina- 
tion of  the  mode  of  their  occurrence,  as  not  from  God. 
We  are  far  more  sure  that  they  are  not  from  God  than 
we  ever  can  be  sure,  after  whatever  scrutiny,  of  precisely 
how  they  are  wrought.  It  is  doubtless  something  like  this 
that  is  expressed — it  ought  to  be  at  least  this  that  is  meant 


LOURDES'S   SUPERSTITION  123 

— by  fimile  Zola's  crisp  remark:156  "That  two  and  two 
make  four  may  have  become  trite — but  nevertheless  they 
do  make  four.  It  is  less  foolish  and  less  mad  to  say  so 
than  to  believe,  for  example,  in  the  miracles  of  Lourdes." 
That  God  is  one,  and  that  He  alone  is  to  be  served  with 
religious  veneration,  is  no  doubt  an  old  revelation.  It  is 
nevertheless  a  true  revelation.  And  he  who  takes  it  as 
such  can  never  believe  that  miracles  are  wrought  at  Lourdes. 
Of  course,  as  R.  H.  Benson  puts  it,157  "those  who  believe 
in  God  and  His  Son  and  the  Mother  of  God  on  quite  other 
grounds,"  may  declare  that  "Lourdes  is  enough."  But 
this  is  not  to  make  the  miracles  carry  the  doctrine,  but  the 
doctrine  the  miracles,  in  accordance  with  J.  H.  Newman's 
proposition  that  it  is  all  a  matter  of  point  of  view,  of  pre- 
suppositions.158 To  those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  believe 
in  God  and  His  Son,  as  they  have  revealed  themselves  in 
the  pages  of  Holy  Scripture,  but  not  in  a  Mother  of  God, 
standing  between  us  and  God  and  His  Son,  and  usurping 
their  place  in  our  hearts  and  worship,  Lourdes  very  dis- 
tinctly is  not  enough.  It  would  require  something  very 
different  from  what  happens  at  Lourdes  to  make  them  see 
the  express  finger  of  God  there.  It  is  not  He  who  rules 
there  so  much  as  that  incoherent  goddess  who  has  an- 
nounced herself  to  her  worshippers  with  as  fine  a  disregard 
of  the  ordinary  laws  of  grammar  and  intelligible  speech  as 
of  the  fundamental  principles  of  Christianity,  in  the  re- 
markable words,  "I  am  the  Immaculate  Conception,"  as 
if  one  should  say,  "I  am  the  procession  of  the  equinoxes," 
or  "I  am  the  middle  of  next  week."  "The  whole  place," 
says  Benson,159  "is  alive  with  Mary."  That  is  the  very 
reason  why  we  are  sure  that  the  marvels  which  occur  there 
are  not  the  direct  acts  of  God,  but  are  of  the  same  order  as 
the  similar  ones  which  have  occurred  at  many  similar 
shrines,  of  many  names,  in  many  lands,  serving  many 
gods.  How  close  all  these  lie  to  one  another  is  singularly 
illustrated  by  what  we  are  told  of  a  daughter  shrine  of 


124  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

Lourdes's  own,  in  that  Near  East  which  is  the  meeting- 
place  of  peoples  and  religions.  At  least,  we  read:160  "The 
sanctuary  of  Feri  Keuii  at  Constantinople,  dedicated  to 
Our  Lady  of  Lourdes,  is  a  place  of  pilgrimage  and  a  source 
of  miraculous  cures  for  Christians,  Jews,  and  Mussulmans. 
Its  silver-wedding  was  celebrated  recently  with  an  assem- 
blage of  people  of  the  religions  which  live  in  the  Turkish 
Empire."  What  Lourdes  has  to  offer  is  the  common  prop- 
erty of  the  whole  world,  and  may  be  had  by  men  of  all 
religions,  calling  upon  their  several  gods.161 


IRVINGITE  GIFTS 


IRVINGITE  GIFTS 

Pretensions  by  any  class  of  men  to  the  possession  and 
use  of  miraculous  powers  as  a  permanent  endowment  are, 
within  the  limits  of  the  Christian  church,  a  specialty  of 
Roman  Catholicism.  Denial  of  these  pretensions  is  part 
of  the  protest  by  virtue  of  which  we  bear  the  name  of 
Protestants.  "In  point  of  interpretation,  the  history  of 
Protestantism,"  as  an  Edinburgh  reviewer,  writing  in 
trying  conditions  in  1831,  justly  puts  it,1  "is  a  uniform 
disclaimer  of  any  promise  in  the  Scriptures  that  miraculous 
powers  should  be  continued  in  the  Church."  In  point  of 
fact  (we  may  slightly  modify  his  next  sentence  to  declare), 
the  claim  to  the  possession  and  exercise  of  powers  of  this 
description  by  individuals  has  always  been  received  in 
Protestant  circles  with  a  suspicion  which  experience  has 
only  too  completely  justified. 

Protestantism,  to  be  sure,  has  happily  been  no  stranger 
to  enthusiasm;  and  enthusiasm  with  a  lower-case  "e"  un- 
fortunately easily  runs  into  that  Enthusiasm  with  a  capital 
"E"  which  is  the  fertile  seed-bed  of  fanaticism.  Indi- 
viduals have  constantly  arisen  so  filled  with  the  sense  of 
God  in  their  own  souls,  and  so  overwhelmed  by  the  wonders 
of  grace  which  they  have  witnessed,  that  they  see  the  im- 
mediate hand  of  God  in  every  occurrence  which  strikes  them 
as  remarkable,  and  walk  through  the  world  clothed  in  a 
nimbus  of  miracle.  To  them  it  seems  a  small  thing  that 
the  God  who  has  so  marvellously  healed  their  sick  souls 
should  equally  marvellously  heal  their  sick  bodies ;  that  the 
God  who  speaks  so  unmistakably  in  their  spirits  should 
speak  equally  unmistakably  through  their  lips.  Especially 
in  times  of  wide-spread  oppression,  when  whole  communi- 

127 


128  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

ties  have,  in  their  hopeless  agony,  been  thrown  back  upon 
their  God  as  their  only  refuge,  and  have  found  in  Him 
solace  and  strength,  it  has  over  and  over  again  happened 
that  out  of  their  distresses  words  and  deeds  have  come  to 
them  which  to  their  apprehension  seemed  manifestly  divine. 
We  may  find  an  illustration  of  the  former  phenomenon 
in  John  Wesley,  who,  though  he  would  have  repelled  the 
accusation  of  superstition,  yet,  as  one  of  his  biographers 
finely  expresses  it,2  "was  always  far  more  afraid  of  being 
ungodly  than  of  being  credulous."  He  would  not  admit 
that  there  was  any  scriptural  ground  for  supposing  that 
miracles  had  ceased.  "I  do  not  know,"  he  declares,3 
"that  God  hath  any  way  precluded  Himself  from  thus  ex- 
erting His  sovereign  power,  from  working  miracles  in  any 
kind  or  degree,  in  any  age,  to  the  end  of  the  world.  I  do 
not  recollect  any  Scripture  where  we  are  taught  that  mir- 
acles are  to  be  confined  within  the  limits  either  of  the 
Apostolic  or  the  Cyprianic  age;  or  to  any  period  of  time, 
longer  or  shorter,  even  to  the  restoration  of  all  things.  I 
have  not  observed,  either  in  the  Old  Testament  or  the  New, 
any  intimation  at  all  of  this  kind."  Feeling  thus  no  pre- 
conceived chariness  with  reference  to  miracles,  he  recog- 
nized their  occurrence  with  great  facility  in  the  past  and 
in  the  present.4  He  twits  Middleton  with  his  readiness  to 
believe,  on  the  testimony  of  scientific  observers,  that  it  is 
possible  to  speak  without  a  tongue,  rather  than  to  credit 
the  miracle  testified  to  as  having  been  wrought  in  favor  of 
the  African  confessors  who  had  had  their  tongues  cut  out. 
"After  avowing  this  belief,"  he  cries,5  "do  you  gravely 
talk  of  other  men's  credulity  ?  I  wonder  that  such  a  vol- 
unteer in  faith  should  stagger  at  anything.  Doubtless, 
were  it  related  as  natural  only,  not  miraculous,  you  could 
believe  that  a  man  could  see  without  eyes."  After  himself 
recording  a  sheerly  incredible  instance  of  mirror-gazing, 
he  solemnly  affirms  his  belief  in  it,  and  stoutly  declares 
that  those  who  can  believe  it  all  fiction  "may  believe  a 


THE    "FRENCH   PROPHETS"  129 

man's  getting  into  a  bottle."6  William  Warburton,  who 
devotes  the  second  book  of  his  Doctrine  of  Grace  almost  en- 
tirely to  criticisms  of  a  series  of  extracts  from  Wesley's 
Journal,  sums  up  his  findings  in  the  remark7  that  "this 
extraordinary  man  hath,  in  fact,  laid  claim  to  almost  every 
Apostolic  gift  and  grace ;  and  in  as  full  and  ample  a  measure 
as  they  were  possessed  of  old";  that,  in  fact,  "of  all  the 
Apostolic  gifts  and  graces  there  is  but  one  with  which  we 
find  him  not  adorned — namely,  the  gift  of  tongues."  To 
such  apparent  lengths  is  it  possible  to  be  carried  by  the 
mere  enthusiasm  of  faith. 

A  very  good  example  of  the  wide-spread  prevalence  oP* 
apparently  supernatural  experiences  in  conditions  of  deep 
religious  excitement  is  afforded  by  the  history  of  the  Cami- 
sards  during  the  long  period  of  their  brutal  persecution; 
and,  indeed,  beyond — for  the  same  class  of  manifestations 
continued  among  their  English  friends,  apparently  by  a 
kind  of  spiritual  infection,  long  after  some  of  them  had 
taken  refuge  from  persecution  in  England.  These  mani- 
festations included  prophesying  and  predictions,  miracle- 
working  and  speaking  with  tongues,  and  they  were  by  no 
means  done  in  a  corner.  A  Mr.  Dalton,  "who  did  not 
know  one  Hebrew  letter  from  another,"  nevertheless  ut- 
tered "with  great  readiness  and  freedom  complete  dis- 
courses in  Hebrew,  for  near  a  quarter  of  an  hour  together 
and  sometimes  much  longer."  Mr.  Lacy  spoke  in  Latin 
and  Greek  and  French,  although  himself  unable  to  construe 
his  Latin  and  Greek,  "of  which,"  the  historian  slyly  re- 
marks, "the  syntax  is  certainly  inexplicable."  Unfortu- 
nately for  themselves,  these  "French  Prophets"  believed 
sufficiently  in  themselves  to  venture  upon  the  luxury  of 
specific  predictions.  They  foretold  that  a  certain  Doctor 
Ernes,  who  died  December  22,  1707,  would  rise  again  on 
March  25,  1708.  He  did  not  do  so;  and  the  prophets  were 
reduced  to  publishing  a  paper  giving  "Squire  Lacy's  reasons 
why  Doctor  Ernes  was  not  raised."    They  predicted  that 


130  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

certain  dreadful  judgments  would  fall  on  London  in  three 
weeks,  explained  explicitly  to  mean  three  literal  weeks. 
When  the  fulfilment  did  not  take  place,  they  re-explained 
that,  after  all,  it  was  three  prophetic  weeks  that  were  in- 
tended— which  corrected  dating  also  was,  of  course,  stulti- 
fied in  the  process  of  time.  Above  all,  of  course,  they  pre- 
dicted the  speedy  coming  of  the  Lord,  and  the  setting  up 
of  His  personal  reign  on  earth,  of  which,  they  explained, 
the  present  diffusion  of  the  spiritual  gifts  among  them  was 
the  preparation  and  the  sign.  ''Christians,"  cries  John 
Lacy,  "now  only  look  upon  Christ  as  dead  and  ascended 
into  heaven.  But  where — where's  the  expectation  taught 
of  His  coming  again?  A  doctrine  that  has  annexed  to  it 
the  powers,  the  mighty  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost  engaged  by 
promises.  Is  the  state  of  Christianity  now  so  perfect  that 
the  powers  and  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost  extraordinary  are 
not  worthy  expecting  or  regarding?  .  .  .  Therefore  the 
extraordinary  dispensation  to  prepare  so  extraordinary  a 
revolution  .  .  .  sure  there  needs  something  extraordinary 
to  prepare  for  so  tremendous,  useful,  so  joyous  and  blissful 
a  state  of  the  Church  on  earth.  Nay,  the  wisest  do  need 
an  extraordinary  call  for  it."8 

This  case  of  the  "French  Prophets"  has  not  been  ad- 
duced because  it  is  better  fitted  in  itself  than  a  number  of 
similar  movements  to  illustrate  the  general  subject.  It  has 
commended  itself  to  our  notice  because  of  its  long  history 
and  its  pathetic  significance  during  its  connection  with  the 
persecutions  in  the  Cevennes;  and  particularly  because  of 
certain  peculiarities  of  its  English  development  which  re- 
call the  Irvingite  movement  to  which  we  wish  to  devote 
this  lecture.  Among  these  may  be  numbered  its  close  con- 
nection with  chiliastic  vagaries  and  the  expectation  of  the 
speedy  coming  of  the  Lord,  and  also  the  circumstance  that 
it  left  behind  it  a  new  sect  in  Christendom,  to  preserve  in 
some  sort  its  memory.  Out  of  the  activities  of  some  of 
the  followers  of  the  "French  Prophets"  originated  the 


UNSETTLED   TIMES  131 

people  called  Shakers,  who,  like  the  Catholic  Apostolic 
Church,  sprung  from  the  Irvingite  movement,  have  pro^ 
tracted  some  sort  of  existence  to  our  day. 

The  religious  atmosphere  of  the  earlier  decades  of  the 
nineteenth  century  was  exceedingly  unsettled  and  filled 
with  a  restless  desire  for  change.  In  particular  premille- 
narian  extravagances  were  rife,  and  men  were  heatedly  look- 
ing for  the  early  coming  of  the  Lord.  It  was  out  of  this 
soil  that  Irvingism  grew,  predicting  the  immediate  advent 
of  Christ,  and  proclaiming  the  restoration  of  the  extraor- 
dinary offices  and  gifts  of  the  Apostolic  age,  along  with  an 
elaborate  church  organization,  in  preparation  for  His  com- 
ing. Never  have  pretensions  to  gifts  and  powers  of  a 
supernatural  order  suffered  more  speedily  and  definitely 
the  condemnation  of  facts.  The  predicted  coming  of  the 
Lord  did  not  take  place:  the  "Apostles"  appointed  to  re- 
ceive Him  at  His  coining  were  gradually  called  to  their 
eternal  home,  and  still  He  came  not;  the  pretenders  to 
supernatural  gifts  one  after  another  awoke  to  the  true  state 
of  the  case  and  acknowledged  themselves  deluded.  But 
the  sect  of  Irvingites,  broken  in  spirit,  torn  with  dissension, 
altered  in  its  pretensions,  still  lives  on  and  adjusts  itself 
to  its  blasted  hopes  as  best  it  may.9 

The  views  of  Edward  Irving,  the  founder  of  the  sect,  on 
the  special  matter  now  before  us,  the  persistence  or  revival 
of  the  Apostolic  charismata  in  the  modern  church,  may  be 
read  at  large  in  two  papers,  entitled  respectively  "The 
Church  with  her  endowment  of  holiness  and  power"  and 
"The  Gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost  commonly  called  super- 
natural," which  are  printed  at  the  end  of  his  Collected  Writ- 
ings, edited  by  his  nephew,  Gavin  Carlyle.  One  or  two 
extracts  will  bring  before  us  the  essential  elements  of  his 
teaching. 

"I  have  shown,"  he  writes,  "the  great  purpose  and  end 
of  this  endowment  of  Spiritual  gifts:  that  purpose  and  end 
is  not  temporary  but  perpetual,  till  Christ's  coming  again ; 


132  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

when  that  which  is  perfect  shall  come,  and  that  which  is  in 
part  shall  be  done  away.  If  they  ask  for  an  explanation 
of  the  fact  that  these  powers  have  ceased  in  the  Church,  I 
answer,  that  they  have  decayed  just  as  faith  and  holiness 
have  decayed;  but  that  they  have  ceased  is  not  a  matter 
so  clear.  Till  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  this  opinion  was 
never  mooted  in  the  Church ;  and  to  this  day,  the  Roman 
Catholics  and  every  other  portion  of  the  Church  but  our- 
selves, maintain  the  very  contrary.  .  .  .  And  I  would 
say,  that  this  gift  hath  ceased  to  be  visible  in  the  Church 
because  of  her  great  ignorance  concerning  the  work  of  Christ 
at  His  second  coming,  of  which  it  is  the  continual  sign; 
because  of  her  most  culpable  ignorance  of  Christ's  crowned 
glory,  of  which  it  is  the  continual  demonstration;  because 
of  her  indifference  to  the  world  without,  for  preaching  to 
which  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  the  continual  furnishing 
and  outfit  of  the  Church.  .  .  .  But  things  are  taking  a 
turn.  Let  the  Church  know  that  things  are  taking  on  a 
mighty  turn.  There  is  a  shining  forth  of  truth  in  these 
subjects  beyond  former  days.  The  power  and  glory  of  a 
risen  Lord,  as  well  as  the  holiness  of  a  Lord  in  flesh,  is  be- 
ginning to  be  understood  and  discussed  of;  and  the  enemy 
would  spread  a  curtain  of  their  sophistry  between  the  Church 
and  the  bright  dawn;  he  might  as  well  hide  the  morning 
by  drawing  before  our  eyes  the  spider's  web  or  the  frost- 
work of  the  night,  which  the  rising  sun  quickly  dissipates. 
.  .  .  The  Church  .  .  .  will  have  her  full  dignity  restored 
to  her  of  testifying  ...  of  a  risen  Lord  in  power  and  glory, 
crowned  for  His  Church  and  in  His  Church  putting  forth 
unto  the  world  a  first-fruit  of  that  power  and  government 
over  all  creation  which  in  her  He  will  ever  exercise  over  all 
creation.  These  gifts  have  ceased,  I  would  say,  just  as 
the  verdure,  and  leaves,  and  flowers,  and  fruits  of  the 
spring  and  summer  and  autumn  cease  in  winter,  because, 
by  the  chill  and  wintry  blasts  which  have  blown  over  the 
Church,  her  power  to  put  forth  her  glorious  beauty  hath 


IRVING'S   TEACHING  133 

been  prevented.  But  because  the  winter  is  without  a 
green  leaf  or  beautiful  flower,  do  men  therefore  argue  that 
there  shall  be  flowers  and  fruits  no  more?  ...  If  the 
Church  be  still  in  existence,  and  that  no  one  denies;  and 
if  it  be  the  law  and  end  of  her  being  to  embody  a  first-fruit 
and  earnest  of  the  power  which  Christ  is  to  put  forth  in 
the  redemption  of  all  nature;  then  what  though  she  hath 
been  brought  so  low,  her  life  is  still  in  her,  and  that  life 
will,  under  a  more  fervent  day,  put  forth  its  native  forces." 
"Unless  men,  therefore,  be  left  so  far  to  themselves  as  to 
say  that  God  hath  ceased  to  testify  to  the  work  which 
Christ  performed  in  the  flesh — of  casting  Satan  out ;  of  re- 
deeming all  flesh  from  death,  and  disease  its  precursor;  of 
restoring  the  animal  and  vegetable  world,  and  all  creation, 
to  their  original  sinlessness,  innocency,  and  subserviency 
to  mankind — unless  men  be  disposed  to  say,  that  they  know 
God  hath  ceased  to  be  at  any  pains  or  charges  in  giving 
testimony  to  this  work  of  His  Son,  they  have  no  ground  for 
believing  that  the  age  of  miracles  is  past.  ...  As  to  the 
fact  which  they  allege,  that  there  have  not  of  a  long  time 
been  any  such  seals ;  granting  their  allegation  to  be  a  truth, 
which  I  do  not  believe,  the  answer  to  it  is,  that  there  hath 
been  no  testimony  to  the  great  work  of  Christ's  redemption 
such  as  to  be  worthy  of  being  so  sealed  unto  ...  in  Chris- 
tendom, since  the  first  three  centuries.  .  .  .  The  subject 
of  the  gifts,  commonly  called  extraordinary,  and  rashly 
conceived  of  as  given  for  a  local  and  temporary  end,  is  one 
of  far  greater  importance  than  the  advocates  of  either 
opinion  have  dared  to  conceive,  or,  at  least,  have  ventured  to 
express:  being  as  I  judge,  connected  in  the  closest  manner 
with  the  edification  of  the  Church  in  love  and  holiness; 
with  her  witness  among  the  nations  for  their  conversion 
unto  Christ;  with  the  glory  of  God  as  the  creator  of  the 
human  soul  for  His  shrine,  agent,  and  interpreter ;  with  the 
glory  of  Christ,  as  the  head  of  the  Church,  subordinating 
all  the  members  unto  Himself  for  the  use  of  the  Creator; 


134  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

with  the  glory  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  as  the  very  life  and  mind 
and  substance  of  Godhead,  inhabiting,  informing  and  mani- 
festing forth  the  being  of  God,  in  such  wise  that  the  Church 
should  be  God's  manifested  fullness,  the  fullness  of  God, 
who  filleth  all  in  all."10 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  enter  on  a  formal  examination 
and  criticism  of  Irving's  views;  they  have  already  been 
judged  by  the  course  of  history.  But  having  thus  pre- 
sented them  to  you  in  his  own  highly  ornate  language,  we 
may  turn  our  attention  to  some  account  of  the  rise  of  the 
movement  called  (but  not  by  its  adherents)  "Irvingism," 
as  to  a  theme  far  more  interesting  and  certainly  as  instruc- 
tive for  the  general  object  which  we  have  in  view.  We 
have  spoken  of  Edward  Irving  as  its  founder,  and  so  he 
was,  without  whose  susceptibility,  enthusiasm,  force,  and 
eloquence  it  could  never  have  come  into  existence.  But  in 
another  sense  he  may  be  thought  of  rather  as  its  chief  vic- 
tim. It  presents  a  curious  subject  for  speculation,  to  con- 
sider how  little  often  the  chief  movers  in  events  like  this 
are  the  real  originators  of  them  or  the  true  forces  which 
produce  them.  Just  as  J.  H.  Newman  was  in  every  high 
sense  the  leader  of  the  Oxford  movement  while  yet  he  him- 
self was  rather  pushed  on  by  the  activity  of  others,  so  that 
it  is  literally  true  that  it  was  Hurrell  Froude  who  was  at 
the  bottom  of  his  Anglo-Catholicism  and  W.  G.  Ward  who 
nagged  him,  against  his  will,  into  Romanism;  so  Edward 
Irving  was  in  every  high  sense  the  founder  and  leader  of 
"Irvingism,"  which  justly  bears  his  name,  while  yet  it  is 
equally  true  that  he  was  driven  into  it  step  by  step  by  the 
influence  and  force  of  other  minds.  With  all  his  sensitive- 
ness of  heart,  enthusiastic  earnestness  of  purpose,  soaring 
views  of  religious  truth,  and  grandeur  of  style  in  its  presen- 
tation; in  a  word,  with  all  those  qualities  which  in  their 
combination  gave  him  a  certain  measure  of  greatness;  his 
simplicity,  perhaps  we  must  also  say,  within  due  limits, 
his  vanity,   and   certainly  we  must   say  his  intellectual 


IRVING'S  PLASTICITY  135 

weakness  and  deficiency  in  judgment  and  common  sense, 
made  him  the  easy  prey  of  other  and  more  energetic 
orders  of  mind.  Henry  Drummond  was  his  Hurrell 
Froude;  Alexander  J.  Scott  was  his  W.  G.  Ward. 

Irving  had  none  too  brilliant  a  career  as  the  young  as- 
sistant of  Chalmers  in  Glasgow,  and  the  summons  to  Lon- 
don in  July,  1822,  to  take  charge  of  the  dying  Caledonian 
Chapel  there,  came  no  less  as  a  surprise  than  as  an  oppor- 
tunity.11 From  the  first,  however,  he  achieved  in  London 
a  popularity  which  began  by  being  astonishing,  and  ended 
by  being  immense.  He  became  the  talk  of  the  town. 
Statesmen  and  men  of  letters  hung  on  his  words.  Society 
took  him  under  its  patronage.  The  little  church  in  Hatton 
Garden  was  soon  outgrown.  This  sudden  and  unexam- 
pled popular  applause  perhaps  did  not  completely  turn  his 
head,  but  it  distinctly  injured  him.  It  left  him  an  en- 
thusiastic, simple-minded  man ;  but  it  gave  him  overween- 
ing confidence  in  himself;  and  it  infected  him  with  the 
illusion  that  some  high  and  world-wide  mission  had  been 
committed  to  him. 

At  the  very  beginning  of  his  London  career,  he  adopted 
the  crass  premillennial  views  which  later  colored  his  whole 
thought.  This  was  the  work  in  him  of  James  Hatley 
Frere,12  a  man  of  incisive  mind  and  strong  individuality, 
who  seems  to  have  deliberately  selected  Irving  to  be  the 
popular  mouthpiece  of  his  Apocalyptic  speculations.  These 
he  succeeded  in  impressing  on  him  with  amazing  complete- 
ness of  detail.  Then  came  "the  little  prophetic  confer- 
ences" at  Albury,  Henry  Drummond's  beautiful  Surrey 
residence,  where  "the  students  of  prophecy,"  as  they  called 
themselves,  began  in  1826  to  meet  for  annual  conferences 
on  the  meaning  of  the  prophetic  Scriptures.13  These  con- 
ferees were  men  of  high  social  position  and  easy  financial 
circumstances — Gerard  Noel,  Hugh  McNeile,  Lewis  Way, 
Joseph  Wolf,  with  Henry  Drummond,  the  richest  and  most 
eccentric  of  them  all,  at  their  head — "a  singular  mixture 


136  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

of  all  things,"  Carlyle  describes  him;  "of  the  saint,  the  wit, 
the  philosopher,  swimming,  if  I  mistake  not,  in  an  element 
of  dandyism." 14  Irving's  imaginative  disposition  took 
fire,  and  he  soon  became  the  chief  figure  of  the  coterie,  and 
began  to  proclaim  everywhere  that  the  Lord  was  shortly 
to  come,  and  that  the  chief  duty  of  believers  was  to  press 
the  signs  of  the  times  on  the  attention  of  men. 

In  this  excited  state  of  mind  Irving  was  called  upon  to 
endure  great  personal  trials.  His  opinions  on  the  person 
of  Christ  were  very  properly  called  in  question ;  and  he  was 
compelled  to  meet  ecclesiastical  process  in  consequence. 
In  the  midst  of  these  distracting  occurrences,  he  undertook 
a  journey  to  Scotland  that  he  might  proclaim  there,  as  in 
London,  the  approaching  coming  of  his  Master.15  On  this 
journey  he  met  at  Row  (McLeod  Campbell's  parish)  a  man 
whose  influence  on  his  subsequent  life  cannot  be  overesti- 
mated— Alexander  J.  Scott,  an  impracticable  probationer 
of  the  church  of  Scotland,  whose  strong  and  acute  but  in- 
docile and  wilful  mind  imposed  upon  every  one  whom  he 
met  an  overestimate  of  his  intellectual  ability.  This  was 
in  the  summer  of  1828.  Irving  was  at  once  taken  captive 
and  engaged  Scott  to  come  up  to  London  with  him  and 
share  his  work,  on  the  only  terms  on  which  Scott  could 
either  then  or  at  any  subsequent  time  have  been  engaged — 
"entirely  unfettered  by  any  pledge  as  to  doctrine."16 
This  "powerful  and  singular  spirit,"  so  sceptical  of  what- 
ever others  believed — his  driftage  carried  him  ultimately 
beyond  the  limits  of  Christianity — so  confident  of  what- 
ever his  mind  fixed  itself  upon  at  the  moment,  had  already 
reached  the  conclusion  that  the  charismata  of  the  early 
church  might  and  should  be  enjoyed  by  the  church  of  all 
ages.  He  succeeded  in  imposing  this  belief  upon  Irving, 
who  himself  dates  his  conviction  that  the  spiritual  gifts  of 
the  Apostolic  age  were  not  exceptional  or  temporary  from 
1828 — the  year  in  which  he  became  associated  with  Scott.17 

Irving  was  inclined  to  be  content  with  holding  his  view 


SCOTT'S  INFLUENCE  137 

as  a  theory.  This,  however,  did  not  content  "the  restless 
soul"  by  his  side.  As  Irving  himself  relates:  "And  as  we 
went  out  and  in  together,  he  used  often  to  signify  to  me  his 
conviction  that  the  Spiritual  Gifts  ought  to  be  exercised  in 
the  Church;  that  we  are  at  liberty,  and  indeed  bound,  to 
pray  for  them  as  being  baptized  into  the  assurance  of  the 
'gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost,'  as  well  as  of  'repentance  and  re- 
mission of  sins.  .  .  .'  Though  I  could  make  no  answer  to 
this,"  he  adds,  "and  it  is  altogether  unanswerable,  I  con- 
tinued still  to  be  very  little  moved  to  seek  myself  or  to 
stir  up  my  people  to  seek  these  spiritual  treasures.  Yet 
I  went  forward  to  contend  and  to  instruct  whenever  the 
subject  came  before  me  in  my  public  ministrations  of  read- 
ing and  preaching  the  Word,  that  the  Holy  Ghost  ought  to 
be  manifested  among  us  all,  the  same  as  ever  He  was  in 
any  one  of  the  primitive  Churches." 18  Scott,  his  assistant, 
doubtless  did  likewise.  Here  we  see,  at  least,  Scott's 
preparation  of  Irving  himself  and  of  his  church  for  what 
was  to  come. 

"But,"  says  Mrs.  Oliphant,19  "Mr.  Scott's  influence  did 
not  end  there.  About  the  same  period  at  which  he  was 
engaged  in  quickening  this  germ  of  expectation  in  the  breast 
of  Irving,  circumstances  brought  him  in  the  way  of  sowing 
a  still  more  effectual  seed."  There  was  a  district  in  Scot- 
land suffering  at  this  time  under  great  religious  excitement 
— roused  partly  by  the  preaching  of  John  McLeod  Camp- 
bell, and  partly  by  the  influence  of  the  kindly  life  of  Isa- 
bella Campbell  of  Fernicarry,  a  young  saint  whose  death 
had  just  profoundly  moved  the  community.  There,  just 
at  this  juncture,  Scott  appeared,  a  "master  of  statement  and 
argument,"  as  Irving  describes  him,  and  in  Mrs.  Oliphant's 
words,  "bent  all  his  powers  to  laying  this  train  of  splendid 
mischief."20  "When  Isabella  Campbell  died,  a  portion 
of  her  fame — her  pilgrim  visitors — her  position  as  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  persons  in  the  countryside,  a  pious 
and  tender  oracle — descended  to  her  sister  Mary,"  21  who 


138  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

seems  to  have  been  a  young  woman  "possessed  of  gifts  of 
mind  and  temperament  scarcely  inferior  to  genius, "  "with 
all  the  personal  fascination  of  beauty,"  and  endowed  with 
a  "young,  fervid  and  impressionable  imagination."  22  On 
her  the  subtlest  arguments  of  one  of  the  acutest  men  of  the 
day  were  poured.  Irving  himself  describes  the  result  thus : 
"Being  called  down  to  Scotland  upon  some  occasion,  and 
residing  for  a  while  at  his  father's  house,  which  is  in  the 
heart  of  that  district  of  Scotland  upon  which  the  light  of 
Mr.  Campbell's  ministry  had  arisen,  he  (Scott)  was  led  to 
open  his  mind  to  some  of  the  godly  people  of  those  parts, 
and  among  others  to  a  young  woman  who  was  at  that  time 
lying  ill  of  a  consumption,  from  which  afterwards,  when 
brought  to  the  very  door  of  death,  she  was  raised  up  in- 
stantaneously by  the  mighty  hand  of  God.  Being  a  woman 
of  very  fixed  and  constant  spirit  he  was  not  able  with  all 
his  power  of  statement  and  argument,  which  is  unequalled 
by  that  of  any  man  I  have  ever  met  with,  to  convince  her 
of  the  distinction  of  regeneration  and  baptism  with  the 
Holy  Ghost ;  and  when  he  could  not  prevail,  he  left  her  with 
a  solemn  charge  to  read  over  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  with 
that  distinction  in  mind,  and  to  beware  how  she  hastily 
rejected  what  was,  as  he  believed,  the  truth  of  God.  By 
this  young  woman  it  was  that  God,  not  many  months  after, 
did  restore  the  gift  of  speaking  with  tongues  and  prophesy- 
ing to  the  Church."  23 

How  it  came  about,  Irving  describes  as  follows:  "The 
handmaiden  of  the  Lord,  of  whom  he  made  choice  on  that 
night"  (a  Sunday  evening  in  the  end  of  March — i.  e.,  March 
28,  1830)  "to  manifest  forth  in  her  His  glory,  had  been 
long  afflicted  with  a  disease  which  the  medical  men  pro- 
nounced to  be  a  decline,  and  that  it  would  soon  bring  her 
to  her  grave,  whither  her  sister  had  been  hurried  by  the 
same  malady  a  few  months  before.  Yet  while  all  around 
her  were  anticipating  her  dissolution,  she  was  in  the  strength 
of  faith  meditating  missionary  labours  among  the  heathen ; 


BEGINNING  OF  THE   GIFTS  139 

and  this  night  she  was  to  receive  the  preparation  of  the 
Spirit;  the  preparation  of  the  body  she  received  not  until 
some  days  after.  It  was  on  the  Lord's  day;  and  one  of  her 
sisters,  along  with  a  female  friend  who  had  come  to  the 
house  for  that  end,  had  been  spending  the  whole  day  in 
humiliation,  and  fasting,  and  prayer  before  God,  with  a 
special  respect  to  the  restoration  of  the  gifts.  They  had 
come  up  in  the  evening  to  the  sick-chamber  of  their  sister, 
who  was  laid  on  a  sofa,  and,  along  with  one  or  two  others 
of  the  household,  were  engaged  in  prayer  together.  When 
in  the  midst  of  their  devotion,  the  Holy  Ghost  came  with 
mighty  power  upon  the  sick  woman  as  she  lay  in  her  weak- 
ness, and  constrained  her  to  speak  at  great  length  and  with 
superhuman  strength  in  an  unknown  tongue,  to  the  aston- 
ishment of  all  who  heard,  and  to  her  own  great  edification 
and  enjoyment  in  God;  'for  he  that  speaketh  in  a  tongue 
edifieth  himself.'  She  has  told  me  that  this  first  seizure 
of  the  Spirit  was  the  strongest  she  ever  had,  and  that  it 
was  in  some  degree  necessary  it  should  have  been  so,  other- 
wise she  would  not  have  dared  to  give  way  to  it."  24 

Meanwhile  the  "power"  passed  across  the  Clyde  to  the 
opposite  town  of  Port  Glasgow  into  another  pious  house- 
hold. When  James  Macdonald  returned  from  his  work 
to  his  midday  dinner  one  day  "he  found  his  invalid  sister 
in  the  agonies  of  this  new  inspiration.  The  awed  family 
concluded  .  .  .  that  she  was  dying."  But  she  addressed 
her  brothers  at  great  length  and  solemnly  prayed  that 
James  might  at  that  time  be  endowed  with  the  Holy  Ghost. 
"Almost  instantly  James  calmly  said,  'I  have  got  it.'" 
With  a  changed  countenance  in  a  few  moments,  "with  a 
step  and  manner  of  the  most  indescribable  majesty — he 
walked  up  to  his  sister's  bedside  and  addressed  her  in  these 
words  of  the  20th  Psalm:  'Arise  and  stand  upright.'  He 
repeated  the  words,  took  her  by  the  hand,  and  she 
arose." 25  After  this  wonderful  cure  James  Macdonald 
wrote  to  Mary  Campbell,  "then  apparently  approaching 


140  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

death,  conveying  to  her  the  same  command  that  had  been 
so  effectual  in  the  case  of  his  sister."  She  rose  up  at  once 
and  declared  herself  healed.  And  here  we  have  the  re- 
stored gifts  prepared  for  the  church. 

The  only  remaining  step  was  to  convey  the  gifts  to  liv- 
ing's church.  Of  course,  he  was  at  once  informed  of  the 
extraordinary  events  which  had  taken  place  in  Scotland. 
He  seems  to  have  caught  the  contagion  of  excitement  at 
once.  John  Bate  Cardale,  a  lawyer  of  living's  circle,  who 
afterward  became  the  first  Irvingite  "Apostle,"  went  to 
Scotland  at  the  head  of  a  delegation  to  investigate  and 
report.  Meanwhile  the  church  at  London  was  kept  in  an 
attitude  of  strained  expectancy.  But  the  "gifts"  did  not 
come  at  once.  An  isolated  case  of  healing  occurred  in 
October,  1830 — a  Miss  Fancourt — but  this  instance  seems 
to  have  stood  somewhat  apart  from  direct  relation  whether 
to  the  Scotch  manifestations  or  to  the  coming  events  in 
Irving's  church.26  Irving's  baby  son  took  sick  and  died, 
and  though  they  sought  it  anxiously  with  tears  there  was 
no  interposition  to  save  him.  During  the  next  spring  daily 
prayer-meetings  were  held  in  the  early  mornings  to  ask 
directly  for  the  "gifts  of  the  Spirit,"  news  of  the  unbroken 
exercise  of  which  was  now  coming  continually  from  Scot- 
land. "Irving,"  says  Mrs.  Oliphant,  "had  no  eyes  to  see 
the  overpowering  force  of  suggestion  with  which  such 
prayers"  "might  have  operated  upon  sensitive  and  ex- 
citable hearts."  27  At  last  we  hear  incidentally  in  July, 
1 83 1,  that  two  of  the  flock  in  London  had  received  the 
gifts  of  tongues  and  prophecy.28  They  had  been  in  ex- 
ercise, however,  for  some  months  before  that,  first  in  the 
form  of  speaking  with  tongues  at  private  devotions,  then  in 
the  presence  of  others,  and  at  length  both  in  speaking  with 
tongues  and  in  prophesying  at  small  prayer-meetings.29 
The  formal  date  of  the  beginning  of  the  "power"  is 
usually  given  as  April  30,  1831,  when  Mrs.  Cardale  spoke 
solemnly  with  the  tongues  and  prophesied.     David  Brown, 


BEGINNINGS   IN  LONDON  141 

however,  seems  to  imply30  that  the  first  to  exercise  the 
power  in  the  presence  of  others  was  Emily  Cardale 
at  a  date  apparently  very  near  this.  He  is  speaking  of 
the  early-morning  prayer-meetings  in  the  church,  which, 
he  says,  began  to  be  held  two  weeks  before  the  General 
Assembly  of  183 1.31  It  was  the  custom  of  a  party  from 
the  prayer-meeting  to  go  home  with  the  livings  to  break- 
fast. "At  one  of  these  breakfasts,"  he  writes,  "a  sweet, 
modest,  young  lady,  Miss  Emily  Cardale,  began  to  breathe 
heavily,  and  increasingly  so,  until  at  length  she  burst  out 
into  loud  but  abrupt  short  sentences  of  English  which 
after  a  few  minutes  ceased.  The  voice  was  certainly  be- 
yond her  native  strength,  and  the  subject  matter  of  it  was 
the  expected  power  of  the  Spirit,  not  to  be  resisted  by  any 
one  who  would  hear.  Mr.  Irving  asked  us  to  unite  in 
thanksgiving  for  this  answer  to  our  prayers."  "Other 
such  instances,"  adds  Brown,  "followed,  but  as  yet  all  in 
private,  first  by  the  same  voice,  but  afterwards  by  a  Miss 
Hall,  and  then  by  a  man  who  rather  repelled  me  (a  teacher 
by  the  name  of  Taplin)  who  professed  to  speak  in  an  un- 
known tongue."  It  was  through  this  Miss  Hall  that  the 
voices  were  introduced  into  the  public  services  of  the 
church,  on  Communion  Sunday,  October  16,  1831.  We 
have  several  accounts  of  the  scene  by  eye-witnesses.32 
What  they  chiefly  dwell  upon  is  the  startling  effect  of  the 
outcry,  and  the  rush  of  the  young  woman,  either  unable 
to  restrain  herself,  or  alarmed  at  what  she  had  done,  into 
the  vestry,  whence  proceeded  a  succession  of  doleful  and 
unintelligible  cries,  while  the  audience  of  fifteen  hundred 
or  two  thousand  people,  standing  up  and  straining  to  hear 
and  see  what  was  toward,  fell  into  utter  confusion. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  give  an  account  here  of  the  natural 
excitement  which  was  raised  in  London;  of  the  increasing 
confusion  which  the  exercise  of  the  "gifts"  brought  into 
the  public  service  of  the  church;  of  the  suit  instituted  by 
the  trustees  against  Irving  for  breach  of  trust  deeds,  and 


142  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

his  exclusion  from  the  church;  of  the  founding  of  the  first 
Irvingite  Congregation  in  Newman  Street  in  a  deserted 
studio  which  had  been  erected  for  the  use  of  the  painter 
West.  The  new  "prophets"  as  a  matter  of  course  soon 
began  to  exercise  the  authority  which  they  found  in  their 
hands  as  inspired  servants  of  God.  They  drove  Irving 
along  from  step  to  step,  until  at  last  a  new  spirit  appeared 
on  the  scene  in  the  person  of  Robert  Baxter  (first  in  August, 
1 83 1,  but  not  as  a  force  until  early  in  1832).33  Instead  of 
unintelligible  "tongues"  and  weak  repetitions  of  pious 
platitudes,  Baxter,  when  the  "power"  was  on  him,  deliv- 
ered himself  authoritatively  in  specific  commands  to  Irving, 
arrangements  for  church  order,  and  the  like,  and  even 
definite  predictions  of  the  future.  Here  was  something 
new  and  dangerous.  Irving  was  startled  and  filled  with 
doubt.  But  the  "power"  in  Baxter  argued  him  down, 
and  all  the  "prophets"  bore  witness  to  the  genuineness  of 
Baxter's  inspiration,  so  that  the  whole  movement  was  com- 
mitted to  this  new  development.  The  dangers  inherent 
in  it  were  not  slow  in  showing  themselves.  The  first  shock 
came  when  the  "power"  in  Baxter  commanded  him  to  go 
to  the  Court  of  Chancery  and  deliver  a  message  which 
would  be  there  given  him,  whereupon  he  should  be  cast 
into  prison.  He  went,  and  no  message  came  to  him,  and 
he  was  not  cast  into  prison.  Other  predictions  that  had 
been  made  failed  of  fulfilment.  Contradictions  began  to 
emerge  between  the  several  deliverances  by  the  same  organ, 
or  between  the  several  organs.  Spirit  was  arrayed  against 
spirit.  The  spirit  that  had  spoken  acceptably  in  one,  was 
pronounced  by  another,  speaking  in  the  Spirit,  nothing 
other  than  an  evil  spirit.  Some  who  had  been  very  for- 
ward in  speaking,  and  had  received  the  indorsement  of 
others  speaking  in  the  Spirit,  were  convicted  of  having 
framed  their  own  messages.  Baxter's  eyes  were  opened, 
and  the  very  doctrinal  basis  of  living's  teaching  having 
become — as  well  it  might — suspect  to  him,  he  found  him- 


DISILLUSIONMENT  143 

self  at  last  no  longer  able  to  believe  that  the  manifestations 
in  which  he  had  himself  taken  so  prominent  a  part  were  of 
God.34 

The  climax  of  this  particular  development  is  very  dra- 
matic. Having  reached  his  conclusion,  Baxter  (who  lived 
at  Doncaster)  naturally  travelled  at  once  up  to  London  to 
communicate  it  to  Irving.  He  arrived  at  the  moment  of 
a  crisis  in  Irving's  own  affairs.  It  was  the  very  morning 
when  Irving  was  to  appear  in  the  suit  brought  against  him 
by  the  trustees  of  the  church  for  permitting  in  it  practices 
contrary  to  the  trust  deed.  Irving  was  at  breakfast  with 
a  party  of  friends.  "Calling  him  and  Mr.  J.  C[ardale] 
apart,"  says  Baxter,35  "I  told  them  my  conviction  that  we 
had  all  been  speaking  by  a  lying  spirit  and  not  by  the  Spirit 
of  the  Lord."  But  we  will  let  David  Brown  describe  the 
scene  from  within.  ■  He  had  himself  reached  the  conclusion 
that  there  was  nothing  supernatural  in  the  "manifesta- 
tions"— this  was  not  exactly  Baxter's  conclusion — and  had 
determined  to  separate  himself  from  Irving.  He  had 
broken  this  to  Mrs.  Irving  but  had  postponed  announcing 
it  to  Irving  himself  until  after  the  trial,  which  was  to  take 
place  that  day.  "The  select  few  of  us,"  he  writes,36  "came 
home  with  him" — from  the  early-morning  prayer-meeting 
— "to  breakfast,  in  the  midst  of  which  Miss  Cardale  ut- 
tered, in  the  usual  unnatural  voice,  some  words  of  cheer  in 
prospect  of  the  day's  proceedings.  But  scarcely  had  she 
ceased  when  a  ring  came  to  the  door,  and  Mr.  Irving  was 
requested  to  speak  with  the  stranger.  After  rive  minutes' 
absence,  he  returned,  saying,  'Let  us  pray,'  and  kneeling 
down,  all  followed  while  he  spoke  in  this  strain:  'Have 
mercy,  Lord,  on  Thy  dear  servant,  who  has  come  up  to 
tell  us  that  he  has  been  deceived,  that  his  word  has  never 
been  from  above  but  from  beneath,  and  that  it  is  all  a  lie. 
Have  mercy  on  him,  Lord,  the  enemy  hath  prevailed  against 
him,  and  hither  hath  he  come  in  this  time  of  trouble  and 
rebuke  and  blasphemy,  to  break  the  power  of  the  testi- 


144  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

mony  we  have  to  bear  this  day  to  this  work  of  Thine. 
But  let  Thy  work  and  power  appear  unto  Thy  poor  ser- 
vant. .  .  .'" 

So  strong  was  the  delusion  to  which  Irving  was  now  de- 
livered— that  Irving  who  had  been  hitherto  plastic  wax  in 
the  hands  of  everybody.  He  was  soon  established  in  his 
new  church  in  Newman  Street.  In  that  church  an  elab- 
orate order  was  set  up,  and  an  ornate  ritual  instituted  ac- 
cording to  the  pattern  of  which  Baxter  himself  had  drawn 
the  outlines,  and  which  was  ever  more  fully  developed  by 
deliverances  from  Baxter's  followers.37  "Before  the  open- 
ing of  this  church,  the  prophet  himself  had  published  the 
wonderful  narrative  in  which  he  repeated  the  predictions 
which  came  from  his  own  lips,  and,  appealing  to  the  whole 
world  whether  they  had  been  fulfilled,  proclaimed  them  a 
delusion."  38  Nothing,  however,  could  now  stay  the  de- 
velopment of  the  "Catholic  Apostolic  Church,"  not  even 
Irving  himself,  had  he  wished  to  do  so.  More  and  more 
overruled  and  set  aside  by  the  powers  he  had  evoked  and 
could  not  control,  he  sank  into  an  ever  more  subordinate 
position  in  the  edifice  he  had  raised.39 

Meanwhile  it  was  not  going  much  better  with  the  "gifts" 
in  Scotland,  where  they  had  originated,  than  in  London, 
whither  they  had  been  transplanted.  The  report  of  their 
outbreak  on  the  Clyde  had  found  a  ready  response  in  the 
heart  of  Thomas  Erskine  of  Linlathen.  His  whole  religious 
life  was  intensely  individualistic,  and  he  too  had  become 
imbued  with  the  same  chiliastic  hopes  which  in  London 
were  fostered  by  the  prophetic  studies  of  Albury.  Predis- 
posed to  recognize  the  phenomena  as  endowments  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  he  repaired  at  once  to  Port  Glasgow  and  be- 
came an  inmate  of  the  Macdonalds'  house,  living  with  them 
for  six  weeks  and  attending  the  daily  prayer-meetings, 
where  he  witnessed  the  manifestations.  His  immediate 
conclusions  he  published  to  the  world  in  a  tract,  On  the  Gifts 
of  the  Spirit,  issued  at  the  close  of  1830,  and  in  a  more  con- 


THOMAS   ERSKINE  145 

siderable  volume  which  appeared  the  same  year  under  the 
title  The  Brazen  Serpent  or  Life  Coming  through  Death. 
"The  world,"  said  he,40  "does  not  like  the  recurrence  of 
miracles.  And  yet  it  is  true  that  miracles  have  recurred. 
I  cannot  but  tell  what  I  have  seen  and  heard.  I  have  heard 
persons,  both  men  and  women,  speak  with  tongues  and 
prophesy,  that  is,  speak  in  the  Spirit  to  edification,  exhor- 
tation, and  comfort."  A  closer  acquaintance  with  the 
phenomena,  however,  first  shook  and  then  shattered  this 
favorable  judgment.  The  developments  in  London  were 
a  great  trial  to  his  faith,  as  indeed  they  were  also  to  that 
of  the  originators  of  the  "gifts"  at  Port  Glasgow,  who  did 
not  hesitate  -to  denounce  them  as  delusions.  "James 
Macdonald  writes,"  41  Erskine  tells  one  of  his  correspond- 
ents, "that  the  spirit  among  them  declared  the  London 
people  to  be  'deceitful  workers  transforming  themselves 
into  the  Apostles  of  Christ.'  Strange  things — spirit  against 
spirit."  He  discovered  that  some  at  least  of  the  deliver- 
ances of  the  Macdonalds  rested  on  no  profounder  inspira- 
tion than  paragraphs  in  the  current  newspapers.42  Before 
the  end  of  1833  he  required  to  write:43  "My  mind  has  un- 
dergone a  considerable  change.  ...    I  have  seen  reason 

to  disbelieve  that  it  is  the  Spirit  of  God  which  is  in  M , 

and  I  do  not  feel  that  I  have  stronger  reason  to  believe 
that  it  is  in  others."  His  conviction  grew  ever  stronger 
that  all  the  manifestations  he  had  himself  witnessed  at 
Port  Glasgow  were  delusive,44  and  that  the  whole  develop- 
ment had  originated  and  been  maintained  through  a  dread- 
ful mistake.45 

Why  he  should  have  ever  given  himself  to  such  a  delusion  \ 
is  the  real  puzzle.  There  is  an  article  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review  for  June,  1831,  reviewing  the  new  charismatic  | 
literature,  considering  which  the  reviewer  impatiently  but 
not  unjustly  exclaims  that  "theologians  look  for  truth,  as 
children  on  excursions  seek  for  pleasure,  by  leaving  the 
plain  path  and  the  light  of  day  to  penetrate  into  caverns 


( 


146  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

and  scramble  in  the  dark." 46  In  this  article  occurs  a 
pungent  paragraph  which  ought  itself  to  have  awakened 
Erskine  to  the  true  nature  of  his  procedure.  The  subject 
in  hand  is  the  criterion  employed  to  discriminate  between 
true  and  false  manifestations  of  the  Spirit.  True  to  his 
spiritual  individualism,  his  "enthusiasm,"  to  give  it  an  old 
name,  Erskine  had  contended  that  the  only  possible  cri- 
terion in  such  cases  is  our  own  spiritual  discernment.  "  The 
only  security,"  he  wrote,  "lies  in  having  ourselves  the  seal 
of  God — that  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost  by  which  we  may 
detect  the  lying  wonders  of  Satan."  "According  to  his 
account,  therefore,"  the  reviewer  comes  down  with  his 
sledge-hammer  blow,47  "the  very  fact  of  their  being  pre- 
pared to  pass  judgment  between  God  and  Satan  in  the 
affairs  of  Port  Glasgow  amounts  to  a  direct  pretence  to  in- 
spiration." "The  gift  pretended,"  he  continues,  "is  that 
'  discerning  of  spirits '  so  celebrated  by  the  Apostles,  as  the 
divine  endowment  by  means  of  which  Simon  the  magician 
was  detected  by  Peter  and  Elymas  the  sorcerer  confounded 
by  Paul.  It  is  not  the  first  time,  doubtless,  that  men  have 
indemnified  themselves  for  the  absence  of  visible  gifts  by 
setting  up  a  title  to  invisible  ones.  Their  argument,  if  it 
entitles  them  to  either,  entitles  them  to  both.  Their  claim 
is  unfortunately  confined  to  the  case  which  admits  no  other 
proof  than  their  mere  personal  assertion  that  they  are 
inspired." 

Certainly  the  claims  made  to  "gifts"  which  admitted 
of  external  tests,  failed  to  justify  themselves  in  the  appli- 
cation of  these  tests.  Even  poor  Mary  Campbell  was,  in 
the  end,  led  to  confess  that  she  had  not  behaved  quite 
honestly  in  the  matter  of  her  "gifts."  "I  had,  before  re- 
ceiving your  letter,"  she  writes  to  Robert  Story,  "come  to 
the  resolution  to  write  to  you  and  to  confess  my  sin  and 
error  for  calling  my  own  impressions  the  voice  of  God. 
Oh,"  she  exclaims,  "it  is  no  light  thing  to  use  the  holy 
name  irreverently,  as  I  have  been  made  to  feel."  48    "'She 


SCOTTISH   COLLAPSE  147 

was  not  at  all  careful  in  her  statements/  wrote  an  impartial 
spectator  of  the  doings  at  Fernicarry,  who  knew  the  at- 
tractive prophetess  well,"  R.  H.  Story  tells  us,49  and  then 
goes  on  to  remark  on  what  he  calls  her  Celtic  temperament, 
"impressive  rather  on  the  spiritual  than  on  the  moral  side." 
It  is  rather  a  sordid  story,  all  in  all,  and  we  leave  it  with 
only  two  remarks,  both  of  which  appear  to  us  very  relevant. 
The  one  concerns  the  pathetic  circumstance  that  Robert 
Story  sent  Mary  Campbell's  confession  to  Irving,  accom- 
panied with  a  note  exposing  her  "want  of  simplicity" — 
and  remarking  on  how  "disappointing  a  career  hers  had 
turned  out,  especially  as  she  was  considered  the  most  re- 
markable and  conclusive  evidence  of  the  Holy  Ghost  being 
again  with  power  in  the  midst  of  the  church" — just  in  time 
to  be  delivered  after  Irving's  death.50  The  other  concerns 
the  completeness  with  which  the  criterion  desiderated  by 
the  Edinburgh  reviewer  of  the  reality  of  the  gift  of  spiritual 
discernment  alleged  to  be  laid  claim  to  by  Erskine,  is  sup- 
plied by  the  issue  in  these  Scotch  instances  of  claims  to 
spiritual  gifts,  so  confidently  accepted  by  Erskine.  This 
issue  for  a  time  profoundly  and  salutarily  shook  Erskine's 
confidence  in  his  judgment  in  such  cases.  "The  shake 
which  I  have  received  in  the  matter  is,  I  find,  very  deep," 
he  writes.51  But  he  can  only  add:  "I  hope  I  shall  not  be 
led  to  shut  my  ear  against  the  true  voice  because  I  have 
been  deceived  by  a  false  one."  52  He  does  not  seem  able 
to  find  the  right  way.53 

You  will  doubtless  be  glad  to  have  some  account  of  the 
nature  of  the  "prophetic"  deliverances,  and  other  mani- 
festations of  this  movement.  You  will  find  such  an  ac- 
count with  specimens  of  the  Scotch  "tongues"  in  the 
eighth  appendix  to  Hanna's  edition  of  Erskine's  Letters, 
written  during  this  period.  Mrs.  Oliphant,  in  the  course 
of  her  biography  of  Irving,  records  quite  a  number  of  the 
utterances.  In  particular  she  gives  the  interjected  "mani- 
festations" of  the  first  service  at  the  Newman  Street 


148  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

Church.54  We  cannot  quote  them  at  large;  here  are  some 
examples.  In  the  course  of  his  exposition  of  the  first 
chapter  of  I  Samuel,  Irving  mentions  the  church  as  bar- 
ren ...  on  which  the  ecstatic  voice  interposes:  "Oh  but 
she  shall  be  fruitful:  oh!  oh!  oh!  she  shall  replenish  the 
earth  and  subdue  it — and  subdue  it!"  A  little  further 
on,  another  breaks  in  with  less  appositeness  to  the  subject: 
"Oh,  you  do  grieve  the  Spirit — you  do  grieve  the  Spirit! 
Oh !  the  body  of  Jesus  is  to  be  sorrowful  in  spirit !  You 
are  to  cry  to  your  Father — to  cry,  to  cry,  in  the  bitterness 
of  your  souls !  Oh  it  is  a  mourning,  a  mourning,  before  the 
Lord — a  sighing,  and  crying  unto  the  Lord  because  of  the 
desolations  of  Zion — because  of  the  desolations  of  Zion — 
because  of  the  desolations  of  Zion !"  There  were  seven  of 
these  voices  heard  during  the  course  of  the  service.  They 
were  all  pious,  but  repetitious,  and,  one  would  think  (with 
Mrs.  Oliphant),  quite  unnecessary,  interruptions  of  the 
service. 

It  is  more  difficult  to  convey  a  notion  of  what  the  "speak- 
ing with  tongues"  was  like.  The  "tongues"  were  thought 
at  first  to  be  real  languages.  Observers  of  the  Scotch  in- 
stances are  very  clear  that,  although  unintelligible  to  their 
hearers,  they  were  languages  with  recognizable  structure 
as  such.55  Cardale  easily  separated  in  J.  Macdonald's  ut- 
terances two  distinguishable  tongues.56  Mary  Campbell 
declared  that  the  tongue  which  she  spoke  was  ordinarily 
that  of  the  Pelew  Islanders.57  The  opinion  soon  became  set- 
tled, however,  that  the  "tongues"  were  an  ecstatic  heavenly 
and  no  earthly  speech.  The  piercing  loudness  and  strength 
of  the  utterance  was  its  most  marked  characteristic.  One 
witness  speaks  of  it  as  "bursting  forth"  from  the  lips  of  a 
woman,  "with  an  astonishing  and  terrible  crash."  58  Bax- 
ter says  that  it  fell  on  him  at  his  private  devotions  so  loudly 
that  he  stuffed  his  handkerchief  into  his  mouth  to  keep 
from  alarming  the  house.59  Irving's  own  description  of  it 
is  as  follows:  "The  whole  utterance  from  the  beginning  to 


THE  TONGUES  149 

the  ending  of  it,  is  with  a  power,  and  strength,  and  fullness 
and  sometimes  rapidity  of  voice,  altogether  different  from 
that  of  the  person's  ordinary  utterance  in  any  mood ;  and  I 
would  say,  both  in  its  form  and  in  its  effects  upon  a  simple 
mind,  quite  supernatural.  There  is  a  power  in  the  voice 
to  thrill  the  heart  and  overawe  the  spirit  after  a  manner 
which  I  have  never  felt."  60  Carlyle  once  heard  it,  and  he 
gives  a  characteristic  description  of  it.61  "It  was  in  a 
neighboring  room.  .  .  .  There  burst  forth  a  shrieky  hys- 
terical 'Lah  lall  lall !'  (little  or  nothing  else  but  /'s  and  <z's) 
continued  for  several  minutes.  .  .  .  'Why  was  there  not 
a  bucket  of  water  to  fling  on  that  lah-lalling  hysterical 
madwoman ? '  thought  we  or  said  to  one  another."  Doubt- 
less both  accounts  are  somewhat  colored  by  the  personal 
equation. 

We  may  imagine  what  a  public  service  would  be  like 
liable  to  interruptions  by  such  manifestations.  Henry 
Vizetelly,  in  his  Glances  Back  Through  the  Years  (1893), 
gives  us  a  vignette  picture  of  Irving  in  his  new  chapel  in 
Newman  Street.  "  What  chiefly  attracted  me  to  the  chapel 
in  Newman-street  was  the  expectation,  generally  realised, 
of  the  spirit  moving  some  hysterical  shrieking  sister  or 
frantic  Boanerges  brother  (posted  in  the  raised  recess  be- 
hind Irving's  pulpit),  to  burst  forth  suddenly  with  one  of 
those  wild  rapid  utterances  which,  spite  of  their  unintelli- 
gibility,  sent  a  strange  thrill  through  all  who  heard  them 
for  the  first  time.  ...  He  had  grown  gray  and  haggard- 
looking,  and  this,  with  his  long,  straggling  hair  and  rest- 
less look,  emphasized  by  the  cast  in  his  eye,  gave  him  a 
singularly  wild  and  picturesque  appearance.  His  voice, 
too,  was  piercingly  loud,  and  his  gestures  were  as  vehement 
as  those  of  any  street  ranter  of  the  day." 

I  think  you  will  not  be  sorry,  however,  to  place  by  the 
side  of  this  a  full-length  portrait  of  one  of  those  early- 
morning  prayer-meetings  held  in  the  Regent  Street  Church, 
which  were  the  scene  of  the  first  public  displays  of  the 


150  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

"power."  You  will  bear  in  mind  that  the  hour  is  six 
in  the  morning,  which  in  the  winter  was  before  dawn. 
"The  church  appeared  to  me,"  writes  our  observer,62 
"to  be  pitch  dark;  only  the  lights  from  the  gas  lamps 
shining  into  the  windows  enabled  us  to  grope  our  way 
forward.  It  seemed  to  be  entirely  full,  but  my  friend  ac- 
costed a  verger,  who  led  us  to  an  excellent  seat,  nearly 
opposite  the  reading  desk.  After  the  people  were  seated 
the  most  solemn  stillness  prevailed.  The  sleet  beating 
upon  the  windows  was  the  only  sound  that  could  be  heard. 
The  clouded  sky  and  the  driving  snow  increased  the  ob- 
scurity, and  it  was  not  for  some  time  that  we  could  per- 
ceive our  nearest  neighbors,  and  assure  ourselves  that  the 
place  was  full  from  one  end  to  the  other.  I  quite  believe 
in  the  exquisite  simplicity  and  entire  sincerity  of  Mr. 
Irving's  whole  character.  I  believe  him  to  have  been  in- 
capable of  deliberately  planning  the  scene  which  followed. 
Had  he,  however,  been  the  most  consummate  actor  that 
ever  lived,  had  he  studied  the  art  of  scenic  portraiture  and 
display  from  his  youth  up,  he  could  not  have  produced  a 
finer  effect  than  on  this  occasion.  Just  as  the  clocks  out- 
side struck  six,  the  vestry  door  opened  and  he  entered  the 
church  with  a  small  but  very  bright  reading  lamp  in  his 
hand.  He  walked  with  solemn  step  to  the  reading  desk, 
and  placing  the  lamp  upon  it,  immediately  before  him,  he 
stood  up  facing  the  audience.  Remember,  this  was  the 
only  light  in  the  place.  It  shone  upon  his  face  and  figure 
as  if  to  illuminate  him  alone.  He  had  on  a  voluminous 
dark  blue  cloak,  with  a  large  cape,  with  a  gilt  clasp  at  the 
throat,  which  he  loosened  at  once,  so  that  the  cloak  formed 
a  kind  of  a  background  to  his  figure.  Tall,  erect,  and 
graceful,  he  stood  for  a  few  moments  in  silence,  his  pale 
face  in  the  white  light,  his  long  dark  locks  falling  down  upon 
his  collar,  his  eyes  solemn  and  earnest,  peering  into  the 
darkness  of  the  building.  .  .  .  After  a  few  musical,  ear- 
nest words  of  prayer  he  opened  the  Bible  before  him,  and 


A  TYPICAL  SERVICE  151 

began  to  read  the  twenty-second  chapter  of  Revelation. 
If  I  were  to  live  a  hundred  years  I  should  never  forget  the 
reading  of  that  chapter.  I  believe  it  exceeded  in  effect 
the  finest  speech  and  most  eloquent  sermon  ever  uttered. 
The  exquisite  musical  intonation  and  modulation  of  voice, 
the  deep  and  intense  pathos  of  delivery,  as  if  the  speaker 
felt  every  word  entering  into  his  own  soul,  and  that  he  was 
pouring  it  out  to  create  a  sympathy  with  his  own  feelings 
in  others — all  this  was  very  wonderful,  and  totally  absorb- 
ing every  thought  of  the  audience.  But  when  he  came  to 
that  verse,  'I  am  the  root  and  the  offspring  of  David,  and 
the  bright  and  Morning  Star,'  the  effect  of  the  last  five 
words  was  electrical.  The  people  could  not  cheer  nor 
applaud,  nor  in  any  way  relieve  their  feelings.  There  was 
a  kind  of  hard  breathing,  a  sound  of  suppressed  emotion, 
more  striking  than  the  loudest  plaudits  could  have  been. 
The  reader  himself  stopped  for  a  moment  as  if  to  allow  his 
unwonted  emotion  to  subside.  Before  he  could  resume 
there  came  from  a  woman  who  was  two  or  three  seats  be- 
hind me,  a  sound  so  loud  that  I  am  sure  it  might  have 
been  heard  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  square.  I  have 
been  trying  to  find  a  word  by  which  to  describe  it,  and  the 
only  word  I  can  think  of  is  the  word  'yell.'  It  was  not  a 
scream  nor  a  shriek ;  it  was  a  yell  so  loud  and  so  prolonged 
that  it  filled  the  church  entirely,  and  as  I  have  said,  must 
have  been  heard  far  beyond  it.  It  was  at  first  one  single 
sound,  but  it  seemed  in  a  short  time  to  resolve  itself  into 
many  separate  sounds — not  into  articulate  words  by  any 
means.  They  were  far  more  like  the  sounds  uttered  by  a 
deaf  and  dumb  child  modulating  its  tones,  but  wholly  inno- 
cent of  speech.  This  was  the  beginning  and  the  ending  of 
the  so-called  'unknown  tongues'  in  Regent  Square,  by 
which  I  mean  they  never  varied  from  nor  improved  upon 
this  type.  How  any  one  could  be  so  deluded  as  to  fancy 
in  them  any  words  or  syllables,  to  say  nothing  of  any  lan- 
guage, I  could  never  understand.    There  was  no  articula- 


152  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

tion,  and  no  attempt  at  it.  Had  there  been  now  and  then 
something  like  a  word,  it  was  mixed  up  in  such  a  jargon  of 
sound,  it  was  uttered  with  such  rapidity,  and  in  such  a 
long  continued  and  prolonged  yell  that,  led  up  to  it  as  I 
had  been  by  the  adjuncts  of  the  scene,  by  the  weirdness 
and  obscurity  of  the  building,  I  was  never  deceived  by  it 
for  one  moment.  After  a  few  minutes'  utterance  of  these 
'unknown  tongues,'  the  excited  woman  began  to  speak  in 
articulate  English  words.  It  was  still  in  the  same  loud 
yell,  slightly  subdued  by  the  necessity  of  speech.  The  ut- 
terances were  chiefly  texts  of  Scripture  of  an  exhortative 
kind — the  first  word  being  uttered  three  times  over,  each 
one  louder  than  the  last,  the  last  calling  forth  the  woman's 
powers  to  the  utmost,  her  breast  heaving  and  straining 
with  the  exertion.  On  this  occasion  the  English  began 
oddly  enough,  with  the  word,  'Kiss!  Kiss!!  Kiss!!!  the 
Son,  lest  he  be  angry,  and  ye  perish  from  the  way.'  This 
morning  there  was  only  one  manifestation.  Generally 
there  were  two;  on  several  occasions  I  heard  three,  and 
once  four.  They  proceeded,  however,  from  the  same 
women,  for  while  the  second  was  speaking  the  first  recov- 
ered her  strength,  and  as  her  companion's  voice  died  away 
in  subdued  murmurs,  she  burst  out  anew,  as  if  a  dozen 
spirits  were  contending  in  her.  When  I  look  back  on  that 
first  morning,  I  feel  moved  with  the  deepest  pity  and  re- 
gret for  poor  Edward  Irving.  He  was  greatly  excited  and 
overcome.  In  his  honest  heart,  he  believed  that  God  had 
honored  him  and  favored  him  above  all  the  ministers  in 
London.  I  can  see  him  now  before  me,  as  I  saw  him  then, 
meekly  and  humbly  saying,  'I  will  now  finish  reading  the 
chapter  in  which  I  was  interrupted  by  the  Holy  Spirit, 
speaking  by  this  young  woman.'  Yes  I  heard  him  say  this 
with  my  own  ears.  Already  the  charm  of  the  service  was 
gone.  He  seemed  glad  to  conclude  it,  as  if  he  were  afraid 
his  own  gentle  words  could  detract  from  and  injure  the 
holy  impression  that  had  been  produced.  .  .  ." 


SHIPWRECK  153 

Edward  Irving  himself  "never  received  the  power,  nor 
attained  to  any  supernatural  utterance,  though  no  one 
more  earnestly  sought  after  it."  63  As  Erskine  in  Scotland, 
so  Irving  in  London,  had  to  be  content  with  the  role  of  ob- 
server of  others'  endowments.  Nor  was  the  actual  num- 
ber of  those  who  enjoyed  the  gifts  at  any  time  very  large. 
"Of  the  many  hundred  individuals  who  for  the  first  twelve 
months  attended  in  London  upon  these  utterances,  and 
who  were,  one  and  all,  praying  for  the  same  gifts,  not  so 
many  as  twelve  attained  to  the  utterances."  "The  lead- 
ing persons  who,  for  many  months  gave  forth  the  utter- 
ances, and  wrought  the  strong  conviction  of  the  work  being 
of  God  were  two  ladies"  64 — and  one  of  them  (Miss  Hall) 
was  not  only  declared  by  her  sister  prophetess  (Miss  Car- 
dale)  to  be  a  false  prophetess,65  but  was  constrained  to 
confess  that  on  some  occasions  at  least  she  was  herself  the 
author  of  her  utterances.66 

Of  course  we  are  in  the  presence  here  of  hysteria.67 
There  are  those  who  take  occasion  from  this  fact  to  exon- 
erate Irving,  in  whole  or  at  least  in  large  part,  for  his  va- 
garious course.  "Oh,"  cries  an  appreciative  biographer, 
"that  the  whole  sad  tribe  of  prophetic  pedants  and  hys- 
terical pietists  had  gone  their  own  way,  leaving  him  to  go 
his!"68  Did  they  not  go  their  own  way?  And  was  it 
their  fault  that  Irving  never  had  a  way  of  his  own  ?  Why 
burden  "the  Albury  sages"  or  the  crowd  of  hysterical 
women  which  surrounded  him,  and  to  whom  he  gave  all  too 
willing  an  ear,  with  "the  shipwreck  of  Irving's  genius  and 
usefulness"?  Is  not  their  own  shipwreck  burden  enough 
for  them  to  bear?  Were  it  not  juster  to  say  simply  that 
this  was  the  particular  kind  of  fire  Irving  chose  to  play 
with,  and  that,  therefore,  this  is  the  particular  way  in  which 
he  burned  his  fingers?  It  is  altogether  probable,  being 
the  man  he  was,  that  if  it  had  not  been  in  these,  he  would 
have  burned  them  in  some  other  flames.69 


FAITH-HEALING 


FAITH-HEALING 

I  have  called  your  attention  to  the  discrediting  which 
befell  the  Irvingite  gifts.  This  discrediting  was  wrought 
not  only  by  the  course  of  history  which  confounded  all 
the  expectations  based  on  them,  but  also  by  the  confession 
which  was  made  by  one  and  another  of  the  " gifted"  per- 
sons that  they  had  suffered  from  delusion.  Let  me  re- 
mind you  of  this,  and  at  the  same  time  point  out  that  all 
the  gifts  are  involved  in  this  discrediting.  The  character- 
istic Irvingite  gift  was  the  "tongues,"  and  the  accompany- 
ing "prophecy."  Robert  Baxter  introduced  a  new  mani- 
festation of  authoritative  and  predictive  deliverances, 
which  was  assumed  to  belong  to  the  "Apostolic"  gift. 
But  all  the  "prophets"  committed  themselves,  when  speak- 
ing in  "the  power,"  to  the  genuineness  of  his  inspiration. 
Their  credit  falls  thus  with  his.  But  again,  their  gifts  are 
inextricably  bound  up  with  the  gift  of  "healing."  You  will 
remember  that  Mary  Campbell  "spoke  with  tongues"  be- 
fore she  was  healed;  and  that  the  descent  of  the  "power" 
on  Margaret  Macdonald  was  preliminary  to  its  descent  on 
James  Macdonald,  who  by  it  was  made  the  first  faith- 
healer  of  the  movement.  By  him  both  Margaret  Mac- 
donald's  and  Mary  Campbell's  healing  was  performed — 
the  initial  steps  of  the  restoration  of  the  "gifts." 

It  is  impossible  to  separate  these  cases  of  healing  from 
the  other  gifts  with  which  they  are  historically  connected. 
And  in  general  the  several  "gifts"  appear  on  the  pages  of 
the  New  Testament  together,  and  form  so  clearly  connected 
a  body  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  separate  them  from  one 
another.  Nevertheless  many  attempt  their  separation, 
and,  discarding  or  at  any  rate  neglecting  the  other  gifts 

157 


158  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

revived  in  the  Irvingite  movement,  contend  vigorously 
that  the  gift  of  healing  the  sick  is  a  permanent  endowment 
of  the  church,  and  has  been  illustrated  by  numerous  cases 
essentially  like  those  of  Margaret  Macdonald  and  Mary 
Campbell  down  to  to-day.  This  assertion  is  very  clearly 
made  by  a  clergyman  of  the  church  of  England,  Joseph 
William  Reynolds,  in  a  book  dealing  with  what  he  calls 
The  Natural  History  of  Immortality.  "Many  facts,  attested 
by  honest,  capable,  painstaking  witnesses,"  he  says,1 
"  show  the  reality  in  our  own  days  of  healings  which  exceed 
the  limits  of  all  known  natural  and  human  means,  so  that 
no  reasonable  doubt  ought  to  exist  as  to  their  being  given 
of  God  in  confirmation  of  our  Christian  faith.  Clergy  and 
laity  of  the  English  church,  various  non-conforming  minis- 
ters, medical  men,  lawyers,  and  professors  of  physical  sci- 
ence, with  a  large  number  of  healed  persons,  present  indis- 
putable evidence  that  the  Gift  of  Healing  is  now,  as  in  the 
Apostolic  Age,  one  of  the  signs  which  follow  those  who 
believe."  The  claim  is  precise,  and  the  belief  which  it 
expresses  is  somewhat  wide-spread.  Already  thirty  years 
ago  (1887)2  there  were  more  than  thirty  "Faith-Homes" 
established  in  America,  for  the  treatment  of  disease  by 
prayer  alone ;  and  in  England  and  on  the  European  Conti- 
nent there  were  many  more.  International  conferences 
had  already  been  held  by  its  advocates,  and  conventions  of 
narrower  constituency  beyond  number.  It  counts  ad- 
herents in  every  church,  and,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  its 
great  diffusion,  it  demands  careful  attention. 

I  am  a  little  embarrassed  to  know  how  to  take  up  the 
subject  so  as  to  do  it  justice  and  to  bring  the  full  truth  out 
clearly.  On  the  whole,  I  fancy  it  will  be  fairest  to  select  a 
representative  book  advocating  this  teaching,  and  to  begin 
with  an  analysis  of  its  argument.  The  way  being  thus 
opened,  we  shall  probably  be  able  to  orient  ourselves  with 
reference  to  the  problem  itself  in  a  comparatively  brief 
space.    The  book  I  have  selected  for  this  purpose  as,  on 


GORDON'S  METHOD  159 

the  whole,  at  once  the  most  readable  and  the  most  rational 
presentation  of  the  views  of  the  Faith-Healers,  is  Doctor 
A.  J.  Gordon's  The  Ministry  of  Healing,  or  Miracles  of  Cure 
in  All  Ages.  The  copy  of  this  book  at  my  disposal  belongs 
to  the  second,  revised  edition,  issued  in  1883.  Gordon 
writes  in  a  straightforward,  businesslike  style,  in  excellent 
spirit,  with  great  skill  in  arranging  his  matter  and  devel- 
oping his  subject,  and  with  a  very  persuasive  and  even 
ingenious  disposition  of  his  argument,  so  as  to  present  his 
case  in  the  most  attractive  way.  He  expresses  his  pur- 
pose as  "to  let  the  history  of  the  church  of  all  ages  answer 
to  the  teaching  of  the  Scriptures  on  this  question,  without 
presuming  to  dogmatize  on  it  himself."  3  Already  we  get 
the  impression  that  he  knows  how  to  present  his  matter 
so  as  not  only  to  please  readers,  but  also  to  remove  such 
prejudices  against  his  cause  as  may  be  lurking  in  their 
minds,  and  to  predispose  them  to  follow  his  guidance.  We 
do  not  lose  this  impression  as  we  read  on.  After  an  in- 
troductory chapter  on  "The  Question  and  Its  Bearings," 
we  are  at  once  given  a  series  of  chapters  on  "The  Testi- 
mony of  Scripture,"  "The  Testimony  of  Reason,"  "The 
Testimony  of  the  Church,"  "The  Testimony  of  Theo- 
logians," "The  Testimony  of  Missions,"  "The  Testimony 
of  the  Adversary,"  "The  Testimony  of  Experience,"  "The 
Testimony  of  the  Healed."  You  will  observe  the  power 
of  such  a  disposition  of  the  matter ;  it  almost  convinces  us 
to  read  over  the  mere  titles  of  the  chapters.  At  the  end 
there  come  two  chapters  on  the  "Verdict" — called  respec- 
tively the  "Verdict  of  Candor"  and  the  "Verdict  of  Cau- 
tion"— and  finally  the  "Conclusion."  We  must  now  look 
a  little  more  closely  into  the  contents  of  this  full  and  ad- 
mirably marshalled  argument. 

Our  logical  sense  meets  with  a  shock  at  the  first  opening 
of  the  volume.  On  the  very  first  page  the  author  rep- 
resents asking  the  question,  What  is  a  miracle?  as  "evading 
the  issue";  and  toward  the  close  of  the  first  chapter  he 


160  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

formally  declines  to  define  a  miracle.  This,  as  the  outcome 
of  a  chapter  on  "The  Question  and  its  Bearings,"  beginning 
a  volume  undertaking  to  give  proof  of  the  existence  of 
"miracles  of  cure  in  all  ages,"  is  far  from  reassuring.  We 
open  our  eyes  wider,  however,  when  we  observe  that  this 
method  of  dealing  with  the  subject  is  not  peculiar  to  this 
author,  but  is  somewhat  characteristic  of  the  advocates  of 
Faith-Healing.  Robert  L.  Stanton,  for  example,  in  an 
able  essay  printed  in  The  Presbyterian  Review,  takes  up  the 
same  position.4  "It  is  well  in  the  outset,"  he  says,  "to 
have  a  definite  conception  of  the  topic  to  be  handled." 
He  then  proceeds  by  way  of  rendering  the  subject  more 
definite  to  express  a  preference  for  "the  category  of  the 
supernatural,  instead  of  that  of  the  miraculous."  Such 
methods  can  bear  only  one  of  two  meanings.  They  either 
yield  the  question  in  debate  altogether — for  no  one  who  is 
a  Christian  in  any  clear  sense  doubts  that  God  hears  and 
answers  prayer  for  the  healing  of  the  sick  in  a  generally 
supernatural  manner — or  else  they  confuse  the  issue. 
The  former  is  certainly  not  their  intention;  these  writers 
do  not  mean  to  yield  the  point  of  the  strict  miraculousness 
of  Faith-Healing.  Stanton's  selected  instances,  on  which 
he  rests  his  defense  of  Faith-Healing,  are  all  such  as  are 
meant  to  demonstrate  specifically  miraculous  working. 
Everywhere  the  use  of  means  naturally  adapted  to  bring 
the  cure  about,  such  as  the  surgeon's  knife  or  the  articles 
of  the  materia  medica,  are,  if  not  forbidden,  yet  certainly 
discouraged  by  the  practitioners  of  Faith-Healing,  and 
represented  as  a  mark  of  lack  of  trust  in  God ;  and  depen- 
dence on  God  alone,  apart  from  all  use  of  natural  means,  is 
represented  as  the  very  essence  of  the  matter.5  After  re- 
fusing at  the  outset  to  define  a  miracle,  we  observe  Gordon, 
accordingly,  showing  no  hesitancy  later  on  in  defining  it 
sharply  enough,  and  asserting  that  it  is  just  this  which  is 
wrought  in  Faith-Healing.  When  the  testimony  is  all  in, 
and  he  comes  to  deliver  the  verdict,  he  declares  decisively,6 


CONFUSING   THE  ISSUE  161 

"a  miracle  is  the  immediate  action  of  God,  as  distinguished 
from  His  mediate  action  through  natural  laws" — than 
which  no  definition  could  be  clearer  or  better.  This,  he 
now  says,  this  and  nothing  else,  is  what  we  pray  for  in  Faith- 
Healing.  It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  these  writers  do  not 
mean  to  yield  the  question  when  they  decline  to  define  a 
miracle  at  the  beginning  of  their  arguments.  Precisely 
what  they  contend  for  is  that  express  miracles  of  healing — ■ 
healings  by  the  "immediate  action  of  God,  as  distinguished 
from  His  mediate  action  through  natural  laws" — still  take 
place  in  numerous  instances.  The  only  effect  of  their  re- 
fusal of  definition  at  the  outset,  therefore,  is  to  confuse  the 
issue. 

Now,  this  confusion  of  the  issue  is  a  very  serious  matter. 
It  has  first  of  all  the  effect  of  permitting  long  lists  of  un- 
sifted cases  to  be  pleaded  as  proofs  of  the  proposition  de- 
fended, although  a  large  number  of  these  cases  would  be 
at  once  excluded  from  consideration  on  a  closer  definition 
of  exactly  what  is  to  be  proved.  Thus  the  verdict  of  the 
simple  reader  is  forced,  as  it  were:  he  is  led  to  look  upon 
every  instance  of  answer  to  prayer  as  a  case  in  point,  and 
is  gradually  led  on  through  the  argument  in  the  delusion 
that  these  are  all  miracles.  It  has  next  the  effect  of  un- 
justly prejudicing  the  reader  against  those  who  feel  con- 
strained to  doubt  the  reality  of  specifically  miraculous 
Faith-Healing  as  if  they  denied  the  supernatural,  or  any 
real,  answer  to  prayer,  instead  of  merely  the  continuance 
through  all  time  of  the  specific  mode  of  answer  to  prayer 
which  comes  by  miracle.  The  confusions  thus  engendered 
in  the  reader's  mind  are  apt,  moreover,  to  eat  pretty  deeply 
into  his  own  modes  of  thinking,  and  to  end  by  betraying 
him  into  serious  errors.  He  is  likely,  for  example,  to  be 
led  to  suppose  that  in  the  cases  adduced  for  his  considera- 
tion he  has  examples  of  what  real  miracles  are;  and  thus 
to  reduce  the  idea  of  miracles  to  the  level  of  these  Faith- 
Healings,  assimilating  the  miracles  of  our  Lord,  for  exam- 


162  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

pie,  to  them  and  denying  that  miracles  in  the  strict  sense 
have  ever  been  wrought,  even  by  our  Lord.  Or,  on  the 
other  hand,  under  a  more  or  less  vague  consciousness  that 
the  instances  of  Faith-Healing  adduced  do  not  prove  what 
they  are  really  adduced  to  prove,  he  may  gain  the  impres- 
sion that  they  do  not  prove  what  they  are  ostensibly  ad- 
duced to  prove,  that  is  to  say,  the  supernatural  answer  to 
prayer;  and  thus  he  may  be  betrayed  into  doubting  the 
reality  of  any  answer  to  prayer  whatever.  Readers  of  the 
literature  of  Faith-Healing  will  not  need  to  be  told  that 
no  merely  hypothetical  effects  of  this  confusing  way  of 
arguing  the  question  are  here  suggested.  Each  of  these 
effects  has  actually  been  produced  in  the  case  of  numerous 
readers. 

So  far  is  confusion  between  things  that  differ  pressed, 
in  the  attempt  to  obtain  some  petty  argumentative  ad- 
vantage, that,  not  content  with  refusing  to  discriminate 
miracles  (the  continued  recurrence  of  which  some  deny) 
from  special  providences  (which  all  heartily  recognize  as 
continually  occurring),  some  writers  make  a  vigorous  effort 
also  to  confound  the  miraculous  healing  of  the  body  with 
the  supernatural  regeneration  of  the  soul,  as  not  merely 
analogous  transactions,  but  transactions  so  much  the  same 
in  essence  that  the  one  cannot  be  denied  and  the  other 
affirmed.  Gordon  permits  himself,  for  example,  to  write: 
"Is  it  right  for  us  to  pray  to  God  to  perform  a  miracle  of 
healing  in  our  behalf?  'The  truth  is,'  answers  an  eminent 
writer,7  'that  to  ask  God  to  act  at  all,  and  to  ask  Him  to 
perform  a  miracle  are  one  and  the  same  thing.  .  .  .'  We 
see  no  reason,  therefore,  why  we  should  hesitate  to  pray 
for  the  healing  of  our  bodies  any  more  than  the  renewal 
of  our  souls.  Both  are  miracles.  .  .  ."  8  The  effect  of 
writing  like  this  is  obviously  to  identify  miraculous  Faith- 
Healing  with  the  cause  of  supernaturalism  in  general ;  and 
thus  the  unwary  reader  is  led,  because  he  believes  in  the 
regeneration  of  the  soul  by  the  immediate  operation  of  the 


OBLITERATING  THE   MIRACULOUS  163 

Holy  Spirit  and  in  a  prayer-hearing  God,  to  fancy  that 
he  must  therefore  believe  in  miraculous  Faith-Healing. 
A  very  unfair  advantage  is  thus  gained  in  the  argument. 

The  deeper  danger  to  the  reasoner  himself  which  comes 
from  thus  obscuring  the  lines  which  divide  miracles,  specifi- 
cally so  called,  from  the  general  supernatural,  although  al- 
ready incidentally  suggested,  seems  to  require  at  this  point 
more  explicit  notice.  When  once  the  distinguishing  mark 
ofjmiracles  is  obliterated,  it  is  easy  to  eliminate  the  specifi- 
cally miraculous  altogether  by  the  simple  expedient  of 
sinking  it  in  the  general  supernatural ;  and  that  not  merely 
in  contemporary  Christianity,  but  in  the  origins  of  Chris- 
tianity also.  Numerous  recent  advocates  of  Faith-Healing 
have  definitely  entered  upon  this  path.  Thus  Prebendary 
Reynolds,  to  whose  book  allusion  has  already  been  made, 
is  perfectly  sure  that  the  miracles  of  Faith-Healing  are  as 
truly  miracles  as  those  that  Christ  wrought  while  on  earth. 
But,  the  fence  between  miracles  properly  so-called  and  the 
general  supernatural  having  been  conveniently  let  down 
for  him  by  his  instructors,  he  is  not  so  sure  that  miracles, 
in  the  sense  of  effects  wrought  immediately  by  God  with- 
out the  intervention  of  natural  forces,  ever  occurred.  He 
seeks  analogies  in  mesmerism,  hypnotism,  and  the  like, 
and  permits  himself  to  write  a  passage  like  this:  "Dr. 
Rudolf  Heidenhaim  gently  stroked  once  or  twice  along 
Dr.  Kroner's  bent  right  arm;  at  once  it  became  quite 
stiff.  Other  muscles,  other  members  can  be  acted  on  in 
like  manner.  The  effects  are  similar  to  effects  produced 
by  catalepsy.  This  shows  how  easy  it  was  for  our  Lord, 
with  His  divine  knowledge  and  power,  to  work  every  kind 
of  healing."  9  Even  Prebendary  W.  Yorke  Fausset  in- 
sists that  the  healing  works  of  our  Lord  were  wrought  by 
Him  not  in  virtue  of  His  Deity  but  on  the  plane  of  His 
humanity,  and  differ  not  in  kind  but  in  degree  "from  the 
wonderful  works  of  human  healing,  or,  at  all  events,  of 
healers  who  have  wrought  'in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ'" 


164  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

— in  which,  it  is  needless  to  say,  he  finds  nothing  that  is 
strictly  miraculous,  though  everything  that  is  "spiritual," 
that  is  to  say,  supernatural.10  Some  may  look  upon  this 
movement  of  thought,  to  be  sure,  with  indifference.  The 
late  Charles  A.  Briggs,  for  example,  taught  that  "if  it  were 
possible  to  resolve  all  the  miracles  of  the  Old  Testament 
into  extraordinary  acts  of  Divine  Providence,  using  the 
forces  and  forms  of  nature  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of 
nature;  and  if  we  could  explain  all  the  miracles  of  Jesus, 
His  unique  authority  over  man  and  over  nature,  from  His 
use  of  mind-cure,  or  hypnotism,  or  any  other  occult  power," 
"nothing  essential  would  be  lost  from  the  miracles  of  the 
Bible."  n  Few  of  us  will  be  able,  however,  to  follow  Doc- 
tor Briggs  in  this  judgment,  a  judgment  which  would  con- 
found Moses  with  the  magicians  at  Pharaoh's  court,  and 
reduce  our  Lord,  in  these  of  His  activities  at  least,  from  the 
manifestation  of  God  in  the  flesh  to  the  exhibition  of  the 
occult  powers  of  man.  It  is  not  easy  to  view,  therefore, 
with  other  than  grave  apprehension  the  breaking  down  of 
the  distinction  between  miracles  and  the  general  super- 
natural; because  it  tends  to  obliterate  the  category  of  the 
miraculous  altogether,  and  in  the  long  run  to  assimilate 
the  mighty  works  of  our  Lord  to — we  put  it  at  its  best — 
the  wonders  of  science,  and  Him,  as  their  worker,  to — we 
still  put  it  at  its  best— the  human  sage.12 

There  is  yet  another  effect,  coming,  however,  from  the 
opposite  angle,  which  follows  on  breaking  down  the  dis- 
tinction between  miracle  and  the  general  supernatural, 
that  we  should  not  pass  by  without  notice.  What  is  the 
natural  attitude  of  a  man  expecting  a  miracle?  Simple 
expectancy,  of  course;  just  quiet  waiting.  But  what  is 
the  natural  attitude  of  a  man  praying  for  help  from  God, 
which  is  expected  to  come  to  him  through  the  ordinary 
channels  of  law?  Equally,  of  course,  eager  activity  di- 
rected to  the  production  of  the  desired  result.  Hence  the 
proverb,  God  helps  those  who  help  themselves;  and  the 


FANATICx\L  TENDENCIES  165 

exhortation,  on  a  higher  plane,  Work  and  pray.  No  man 
prays  God  for  a  good  harvest  and  then  neglects  to  plan  and 
plant  and  cultivate.  If  he  did  he  knows  perfectly  well  he 
would  neither  deserve  nor  receive  the  harvest.  Similarly 
God  requires  effort  on  the  part  of  those  who  receive  His 
supernatural  salvation — even  though  there  are  elements 
in  it  which  do  not  come  by  "  law."  ''Work  out  your  own 
salvation  with  fear  and  trembling,"  Paul  commands,  "  for 
it  is  God  who  worketh  in  you  both  to  will  and  to  work, 
for  his  good  pleasure."  One  would  think  that  Gordon, 
who  insists  that  the  healing  of  our  bodies  and  the  renewal 
of  our  souls  stand  on  the  same  plane  with  respect  to  the 
nature  of  the  Divine  activities  involved,  would  infer  from 
such  a  passage  that  since  the  gift  of  salvation  from  God 
does  not  supersede  our  duty  to  work  out  our  own  salva- 
tion, so  the  gift  of  bodily  healing  from  God  cannot  super- 
sede the  duty  of  working  out  our  own  healing — each  by 
the  use  of  the  appropriate  means.  But  no;  he  requires  us 
to  discard  means,  and  all  seeking  through  means.  Whence 
there  follows,  on  the  one  hand,  an  additional  proof  that, 
despite  his  refusal  to  define  "miracle"  for  his  readers  at 
the  outset,  he  carries  in  his  own  mind  a  perfectly  definite 
conception  of  what  a  miracle  is;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
an  indication  of  the  fanatical  character  of  his  teaching  as 
to  Faith-Healing — if  it  does  not  turn  out  to  be  not  merely 
supernatural  but  distinctively  miraculous  in  its  mode  of 
occurrence.  He  who  prays  for  a  harvest,  and  does  not 
plough,  and  sow,  and  reap,  is  a  fanatic.  He  who  prays 
for  salvation  and  does  not  work  out  his  own  salvation  is 
certainly  a  Quietist,  and  may  become  an  Antinomian. 
He  who  prays  for  healing  and  does  not  employ  all  the 
means  of  healing  within  his  reach — hygiene,  nursing,  medi- 
cine, surgery, — unless  God  has  promised  to  heal  him  in  the 
specific  mode  of  precise  miracle,  is  certainly  a  fanatic  and 
may  become  also  a  suicide.  Whence,  at  this  stage  of  the 
inquiry,  we  may  learn  not  merely  the  controversial  un- 


166  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

fairness  and  the  logical  error  of  refusing  to  define  at  the 
outset  of  a  discussion  like  this  what  a  miracle  is,  but  also 
the  grave  practical  danger  which  arises  from  such  a  proce- 
dure of  leading  men  into  destructive  fanaticism.  It  is  the 
essence  of  fanaticism  to  neglect  the  means  which  God  has 
ordained  for  the  production  of  effects. 

We  perceive  that  Gordon  is  bound  to  produce  evidence 
not  merely  of  supernatural  healing  but  distinctively  of 
miraculous  healing  in  order  to  justify  his  contention.  And 
with  his  manner  of  opening  the  discussion  before  us,  we 
feel  bound,  not  only  for  our  own  instruction  but  for  our 
protection  as  well,  to  scrutinize  the  evidence  he  offers  with 
care,  in  order  to  assure  ourselves  that  it  unambiguously 
justifies  the  conclusion  that  God  has  continued  the  gift  of 
specifically  miraculous  healing  permanently  in  the  church. 
The  heads  of  the  chapters  in  which  the  proof  is  adduced 
have  already  been  mentioned.  The  first  of  them  appropri- 
ately invites  us  to  consider  the  testimony  of  Scripture. 
Three  scriptural  passages  are  cited  and  commented  upon 
at  large.  These  are:  Matt.  8  :  17:  "And  he  cast  out  the 
spirits  with  his  word,  and  healed  all  that  were  sick:  that  it 
might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  by  Esaias  the  prophet, 
saying,  Himself  took  our  infirmities,  and  bare  our  sick- 
nesses"; Mark  16  :  17,  18:  "These  signs  shall  follow  them 
that  believe:  in  my  name  shall  they  cast  out  devils; 
they  shall  speak  with  new  tongues;  they  shall  take  up 
serpents ;  and  if  they  drink  any  deadly  thing,  it  shall  not 
hurt  them;  they  shall  lay  their  hands  on  the  sick  and 
they  shall  recover";  and  James  5  :  14,  15:  "Is  any  sick 
among  you?  let  him  call  for  the  elders  of  the  church; 
and  let  them  pray  over  him,  anointing  him  with  oil  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord:  and  the  prayer  of  faith  shall 
save  the  sick,  and  the  Lord  shall  raise  him  up;  and  if 
he  have  committed  sins,  they  shall  be  forgiven  him." 
Elsewhere,  and  in  treatises  of  other  writers,  we  find  hints 
of  other  passages  supposed  to  bear  on  the  subject,  such 


MARK  16  :  17,  18  SPURIOUS  167 

as  John  14  :  12,  13:  "Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  He 
that  believeth  on  me,  the  works  that  I  do  shall  he  do 
also;  and  greater  works  than  these  shall  he  do;  because  I 
go  unto  my  Father";13  the  enumeration  of  miraculous 
gifts  by  Paul  in  the  twelfth  chapter  of  I  Corinthians,  with- 
out hint  of  their  approaching  cessation,  and14  "among 
other  powers  which  are  conceded  to  belong  to  the  Church 
to  the  end  or  'till  He  come'";  and  especially  numerous 
instances  of  actual  Faith-Healing  in  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  alike,  particularly  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles, 
which  we  are  told,  "is  full  of  it."  It  is  observable,  however, 
that  the  three  passages  on  which  Gordon  rests  his  argu- 
ment really  constitute  the  case  of  the  other  writers  as  well. 
We  must  take  a  look  at  them,  though,  naturally,  as  brief 
a  look  as  can  be  made  serviceable. 

We  begin  with  the  second  of  them,  Mark  16  :  17,  18, 
because  we  may  rule  it  out  of  court  at  once  as  spurious. 
Of  course  its  spuriousness  may  be  disputed,  and  some  very 
learned  men  have  disputed  it.  The  late  Dean  Burgon 
published  a  lengthy  treatise  in  its  defense,  and  the  Abbe 
Martin  wrote  an  even  more  lengthy  one.  Nevertheless 
it  is  just  as  certain  that  it  is  spurious  as  anything  of  this 
kind  can  be  certain.  The  certainty  that  it  was  not  origi- 
nally a  part  of  Mark's  Gospel,  for  example,  is  the  same 
kind  of  certainty  as  that  the  beautiful  verse 

"For  Thy  sorrows  we  adore  Thee, 

For  the  griefs  that  wrought  our  peace; 
Gracious  Saviour,  we  implore  Thee, 
In  our  hearts  Thy  love  increase," 

which  we  now  sing  as  the  last  verse  of  the  hymn,  "Sweet 
the  moments,  rich  in  blessing,"  was  not  originally  a  part 
of  that  hymn.  Or  if  you  prefer  to  put  it  so,  the  certainty 
that  the  last  twelve  verses  of  Mark  are  spurious  is  the 
same  in  kind  as  the  certainty  that  the  rest  of  Mark's 
Gospel  is  genuine.     And  it  "may  be  added  that  it  is  just  as 


168  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

well  for  you  and  me  that  they  are  spurious.  For  the  gifts 
that  are  promised  to  "them  that  believe"  seem  not  to  be 
promised  to  eminent  saints  merely,  one  here  and  there 
who  believes  mightily,  but  to  all  believers;  and  what  is 
promised  to  believers  is  not  one  or  two  of  these  gifts  but 
all  of  them.  " These  signs,"  it  is  said,  "shall  accompany 
them  that  believe."  I  should  not  like  to  have  the  genuine- 
ness of  my  faith  made  dependent  upon  my  ability  to  speak 
with  new  tongues,  to  drink  poison  innocuously,  and  to 
heal  the  sick  with  a  touch.15  And,  let  us  note  in  passing, 
it  certainly  was  not  understood  in  the  Apostolic  Church 
that  these  gifts  were  inseparable  from  genuine  faith.  The 
incident  of  the  conversion  of  the  Samaritans  recorded  in 
the  eighth  chapter  of  Acts  stands  there,  as  we  have  seen 
in  a  previous  lecture,16  for  the  express  purpose  of  teaching 
us  the  contrary — that,  to  wit,  these  signs  accompanied 
not  them  that  believed  but  them  on  whom  the  Apostles 
laid  their  hands  in  order  to  confer  these  signs  upon  them. 
The  employment  of  this  spurious  passage  by  Gordon  in 
this  connection  brings  him  into  inevitable  embarrassment. 
For  although,  when  commenting  on  it  here,17  he  insists, 
as  he  must,  that  "this  rich  cluster  of  miraculous  promises 
all  hangs  by  a  single  stem,  faith" — "the  same  believing  to 
which  is  attached  the  promise  of  salvation";  and  that 
"whatever  practical  difficulties  we  may  have  in  regard  to 
the  fulfillment  of  this  word,  these  ought  not  to  lead  us  to 
limit  it  where  the  Lord  has  not  limited  it";  yet,  when  he 
comes,  at  a  later  point,  to  meet  the  objection  that  "if  you 
insist  that  miracles  of  healing  are  possible  in  this  age,  then 
you  must  logically  admit  that  such  miracles  as  raising  the 
dead,  turning  water  into  wine,  and  speaking  in  unknown 
tongues  are  still  possible"  18 — he  does  "throw  one  half  of 
the  illustrious  promise  into  eclipse,"  denying  that  that  part 
of  it,  at  least,  which  says  that  this  sign  shall  follow  believers, 
"They  shall  speak  with  other  tongues,"  does  still  follow 
them.     Nor  will  it  be  easy  to  show  that  "taking  up  ser- 


JAMES  5  :  14,  15  IRRELEVANT  169 

pents,"  whatever  that  may  mean,  or  drinking  deadly  things 
without  harm,  are  not  "miracles  on  external  nature,  like 
the  turning  of  the  water  into  wine."  The  truth  is  that 
these  items  bear  an  apocryphal  appearance,  and  constitute 
one  of  the  internal  indications,  answering  to  the  sufficient 
external  proof,  that  the  passage  is  uncanonical  and  of  un- 
inspired origin.19 

The  third  passage,  that  from  James  5  :  14,  15,  we  are 
ourselves  inclined  to  set  aside  with  equal  summariness  as 
irrelevant.  We  allow,  of  course,  that  the  presumption  is 
"that  the  passage  refers  to  an  established  and  perpetual 
usage  in  the  Church" ;  we  should  not  find  it  difficult  to  be- 
lieve that  "  the  oil  is  applied  as  a  symbol  of  the  communica- 
tion of  the  Spirit,  by  whose  power  healing  is  effected"; 
we  agree  that  "the  promise  of  recovery  is  explicit,  and  un- 
conditional" to  the  prayer  of  faith.20  But  we  see  no  in- 
dication in  the  passage  that  "a  peculiar  miraculous  faith" 
is  intended ;  no  promise  of  a  healing  in  a  specifically  mirac- 
ulous manner;  and  no  command  to  exclude  medicinal 
means,  or  proof  of  their  exclusion.  If  we  read  the  passage 
with  simple  minds,  free  from  preconceptions,  I  think  we 
shall  find  in  it  nothing  but  a  very  earnest  exhortation  to 
sick  people  to  turn  to  the  Lord  in  their  extremity,  and  a 
very  precious  promise  to  those  who  thus  call  upon  Him, 
that  the  Lord  will  surely  hearken  to  their  cry. 

The  passage  does  not  stand  off  by  itself  in  isolation:  it 
has  a  context.  And  the  context  throws  fight  upon  the 
simplicity  of  the  meaning.  "  Is  any  among  you  suffering  ?  " 
asks  James,  and  advises,  "let  him  pray.  Is  any  cheerful? 
let  him  sing  praises.  Is  any  among  you  sick?  let  him 
call  for  the  elders  of  the  church;  and  let  them  pray  over 
him,  anointing  him  with  oil  in  the  name  of  the  Lord;  and 
the  prayer  of  faith  shall  save  him  that  is  sick,  and  the  Lord 
shall  raise  him  up ;  and  if  he  have  committed  sins,  it  shall 
be  forgiven  him."  Is  there  anything  here  that  is  not  re- 
peated before  our  eyes  every  day,  whenever  any  Christian 


170  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

is  sick — except  that  we  have  allowed  the  formal  churchly 
act  of  intercession  for  him  to  fall  into  desuetude  ?  Here  is 
really  the  gravamen  of  the  passage  to  us.  The  explicit 
promise  is  to  the  official  intercession  of  the  church,  the 
Apostolic  enforcement,  I  take  it,  consonant  to  the  entrance 
into  history  of  the  organized  church,  of  our  Lord's  gracious 
promise,  that  "when  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in 
His  name,  there  He  is  in  the  midst  of  them."  Even  nature 
itself  should  have  taught  us  the  value  of  this  organic  sup- 
plication; does  not  Emile  Boutroux,  for  example,  declare21 
that  "a  collective  will  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  mathe- 
matical sum  of  the  individual  wills"?  And  can  we 
wonder  that  our  Lord  should  honor  the  same  principle? 
Apart  from  this  failure,  we  have  nothing  in  the  passage 
that  transcends  universal  Christian  experience.  Where  is 
there  any  command  in  it  to  exclude  the  ordinary  medicinal 
means?  Where  is  there  any  promise  of  a  specifically  mi- 
raculous answer?  When  James  says,  "If  any  of  you 
lacketh  wisdom,  let  him  ask  of  God  who  giveth  to  all  men 
liberally  and  upbraideth  not,  and  it  shall  be  given  him," 
are  we  to  understand  him  to  forbid  that  wisdom  should  be 
sought  in  the  natural  way  of  thoughtful  consideration,  and 
to  promise  that  God  will  bestow  it  after  a  specifically  mi- 
raculous fashion  ?  When  our  Lord  says,  with  complete  ab- 
sence of  any  hint  of  limitation  as  to  the  field  in  which  the 
request  moves,  "Ask  and  ye  shall  receive,"  are  we  to  under- 
stand Him  to  forbid  all  effort  in  any  sphere  of  life,  and  to 
promise  specifically  miraculous  provision  for  all  our  needs? 
Are  we  to  expect  to  be  fed  with  manna  from  heaven,  or  are 
we  not  rather  to  learn  to  work  with  our  own  hands,  that 
we  may  have  wherewith  to  give  to  the  necessities  of 
others  as  well  as  to  supply  our  own  wants?  There  seems 
to  be  no  more  reason  in  our  present  passage  to  exclude 
medicinal  means  from  the  healing  of  the  sick,  or  to  expect 
a  miraculous  answer  to  our  prayers  in  their  behalf,  than 
there  is  in  our  Lord's  promise  to  exclude  the  use  of  all 


ANOINTING  REMEDIAL  171 

means  of  seeking  to  supply  our  daily  necessities  and  to 
depend  wholly  on  miraculous  gifts  from  heaven. 

It  is  probable  that  the  common  impression  received  from 
this  passage  of  the  promise  of  a  miraculous  healing  in  large 
part  arises  from  what  seems  the  extreme  formality  of  the 
transaction  recommended.  The  sick  man  is  to  send  for 
the  elders  of  the  church  to  pray  for  him,  and  they  are  to 
anoint  him  with  oil.  We  are  apt  here  to  get  the  emphasis 
misplaced.  There  is  no  emphasis  on  the  anointing  with 
oil.  That  is  a  mere  circumstantial  detail,  thrown  in  by 
the  way.  The  emphasis  falls  wholly  on  the  sick  man's 
getting  himself  prayed  for  officially  by  the  elders  of  the 
church,  and  the  promise  is  suspended  wholly  on  their 
prayer,  on  the  supposition  that  it  is  offered  in  faith.  The 
circumstantial  clause,  thrown  in  almost  incidentally, 
"anointing  with  oil  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,"  is  susceptible 
of  two  interpretations.22  The  reference  may  be  to  the  use 
of  oil  as  a  symbol  of  the  power  of  the  Spirit  to  be  exercised 
in  the  healing ;  or  it  may  be  to  the  use  of  oil  as  a  medicinal 
agent.  In  neither  view  is  the  employment  of  medicinal 
agents  excluded;  but  in  the  latter  view  their  employment 
is  distinctly  alluded  to.  The  circumstance  that  oil  was 
well-nigh  the  universal  remedy  in  the  medical  practice  of 
the  day  favors  the  latter  view,  as  does  the  employment  of, 
as  Archbishop  Trench  puts  it,  "the  mundane  and  pro- 
fane" instead  of  the  "sacred  and  religious  word"  for 
the  act  of  anointing.23  The  lightness  of  the  allusion  to 
the  anointing  points  in  the  same  direction.  It  scarcely 
seems  that  so  solemn  an  act  and  so  distinct  an  act  as  cere- 
monial anointing  could  be  alluded  to  so  cursorily.24  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  allusion  is  to  the  use  of  oil  as  a 
medicinal  agent,  everything  falls  into  its  place.  The 
meaning  then  is  in  effect,  "giving  him  his  medicine  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord."  The  emphasis  falls  not  on  the  anoint- 
ing, but  on  its  being  done  "in  the  name  of  the  Lord,"  and 
the  whole  becomes  an  exhortation  to  Christians,  when  they 


172  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

are  sick,  to  seek  unto  the  Lord  as  well  as  to  their  physician 
— nay,  to  seek  unto  the  Lord  rather  than  to  their  physician 
— with  a  promise  that  the  Lord  will  attend  to  their  cry. 
If  any  is  sick  among  you,  we  read,  let  him  call  for  the  elders 
of  the  church  and  let  them  pray  for  him,  rubbing  him  with 
his  oil  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  and  the  prayer  of  faith 
shall  save  him  that  is  sick.  Where  is  there  promise  of 
miracle  in  that?25 

What  James  requires  of  us  is  merely  that  we  shall  be 
Christians  in  our  sickness  as  in  our  health,  and  that  our 
dependence  then,  too,  shall  be  on  the  Lord.  It  is  just  the 
truly  Christian  attitude  that  he  exhorts  us  to,  precisely 
as  Prebendary  Reynolds  describes  it.  "We  avail  our- 
selves," says  he,26  "of  all  that  science  knows,  and  thank 
God  for  it.  The  resources  of  civilization  are  ours,  and  we 
use  them  to  the  utmost.  We  labour  in  wise  and  kindly 
nursing,  and  thankfully  call  in  the  medical  skill  which  the 
devout  and  learned  and  experienced  physician  and  surgeon 
have  at  command.  It  is  God,  however,  the  real  physician, 
who  gives  the  chief  medicine;  who  makes  drugs,  opera- 
tions, kindness,  nursing  to  have  true  healing  power;  who 
takes  away  sin,  sickness,  death,  giving  righteousness,  heal- 
ing, eternal  life."  Do  you  say  this  is  a  purely  clerical 
view?  It  is  the  physician's  view  also,  if  the  physician 
happens  to  be  a  Christian.  "I  dressed  the  wound  and 
God  healed  it,"  wrote  Ambroise  Pare,  the  great  Huguenot 
physician — the  father  of  modern  surgery — on  the  walls 
of  the  Ecole  de  Medecine  at  Paris.27  Let  me  read  you, 
however,  more  at  large  how  a  more  modern  Christian 
physician  puts  it.  "In  the  healing  of  every  disease  of 
whatever  kind,"  writes  Doctor  Henry  E.  Goddard,28  "we 
cannot  be  too  deeply  impressed  with  the  Lord's  part  of  the 
work.  He  is  the  operator.  We  are  the  co-operators.  More 
and  more  am  I  impressed  that  every  patient  of  mine  who 
has  ever  risen  up  from  his  sick  bed  onto  his  feet  again  has 
done  so  by  the  divine  power.     Not  I,  but  the  Lord,  has 


THE  LORD   THE  HEALER  173 

cured  him.  And  it  is  this  fact  that  the  Lord  does  so  much, 
that  gives  to  different  systems  of  healing  their  apparent 
cures.  He  has  healed  many  a  one  in  spite  of  medicine, 
in  spite  of  mental  healers,  in  spite  of  ignorance,  in  spite  of 
negligence  and  poor  and  scanty  food.  [Nineteen  out  of 
twenty  cases  of  grippe  will  get  well  without  doing  anything 
for  it,  if  we  are  willing  to  bear  it  until  that  time.  Pneu- 
monia, even,  is  what  the  physician  calls  a  self-limiting 
disease,  and  many  cases  will  recover  alone  if  we  are  will- 
ing to  run  our  chances  with  it.  The  arm  may  drop  into 
boiling  water  and  become  scalded.  Nine  times  out  of  ten  it 
will  take  care  of  itself  and  heal.  But  if  that  arm  is  mine  it 
is  going  to  have  an  outward  application  which  will  make 
it  feel  better  the  moment  it  touches  it.  And  more  im- 
portant by  far,  it  is  going  to  be  dressed  aseptically  to  pre- 
vent blood  poisoning.  It  might  get  well  itself,  probably 
would;  but  it  is  going  to  have  my  little  co-operation,  the 
most  intelligent  that  I  can  render,  that  the  Lord  may  have 
the  open  door  through  which  He  can  come  in  and  bless  it." 
It  is  the  very  spirit  of  James,  I  take  it,  that  speaks  in  this 
Christian  physician.  If  you  are  sick,  you  will  use  means, 
all  the  means  that  exist;  but  you  will  use  the  means  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord,  and  to  Him  you  will  look  for  the  issue. 
The  scattered  passages  of  Scripture  which  are  appealed 
to  here  and  there  by  Faith-Healers  to  buttress  the  chief 
proof  texts  need  not  delay  us  more  than  a  moment.  The 
examples  of  miraculous  cures  adduced  from  the  Bible,  are, 
of  course,  irrelevant.  No  one  of  the  parties  to  this  dis- 
cussion doubts  that  they  were  truly  miraculous.  The 
question  at  issue  is,  whether  such  miraculous  works  may 
still  be  performed,  now  that  the  period  of  revelation  has 
gone  by.  The  appeal  to  the  enumeration  of  gifts  in  the 
twelfth  chapter  of  I  Corinthians  is  equally  irrelevant,  since 
the  question  at  issue  is  precisely  whether  they  are  ordinary 
gifts  continued  in  the  church,  or  extraordinary  gifts  con- 
nected (according  to  the  eighth  chapter  of  Acts)  directly 


174  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

with  the  Apostles.  John  14  :  12  is  worthy  of  more  atten- 
tion. The  Faith-Healers  do  not  even  profess,  however, 
to  do  the  great  works  which  Christ  did — His  miracles  on 
nature,  His  raising  of  the  dead — and  much  less  can  they 
point  to  their  healings  as  greater  works  than  these.29  No 
miracles,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  greater  than  those 
which  Christ  did,  have  been  done  by  any  of  His  followers. 
But  in  and  through  His  followers  He  has,  in  fulfilment  of 
this  promise,  manifested  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
foreshadowed  and  begun  at  Pentecost,  beyond  anything 
witnessed  in  His  lifetime;  and  He  is  thus  conquering  the 
world  to  Himself  through  the  "greater  works"  of  His  dis- 
ciples. That  He  refers  here  to  these  spiritual  works  is 
generally  agreed.30 

I  have  reserved  to  the  last  the  passage  which  Gordon 
appeals  to  first,  because  its  application  to  the  present 
matter  raises  a  question  of  doctrine  which  it  seemed  more 
convenient  to  discuss  at  the  end,  rather  than  at  the  begin- 
ning of  a  scrutiny  of  proof  texts.  When  speaking  of  our 
Lord's  abounding  miracles  of  healing,  Matthew  says  that 
He  did  them  "that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken 
by  Isaiah  the  prophet,  saying,  Himself  took  our  infirmities 
and  bare  our  diseases"  (Matt.  8  :  17).  The  passage  has, 
of  course,  no  direct  bearing  on  the  assertion  that  miraculous 
cures  continue  to  be  performed  in  the  church.  It  speaks 
only  of  Christ's  own  miraculous  cures,  and  does  not  in  the 
remotest  way  suggest  that  His  followers  were  to  work  sim- 
ilar ones.  It  can  be  made  useful  to  the  Faith-Healing 
hypothesis,  not  directly,  but  only  indirectly,  through  the 
doctrine  which  it  is  supposed  to  teach.  That  doctrine  is 
declared  to  be  this:  "That  we  have  Christ  set  before  us 
as  the  sickness-bearer  as  well  as  the  sin-bearer  of  His  peo- 
ple"; "that  Christ  endured  vicariously  our  diseases  as 
well  as  our  iniquities";  and,  it  being  true  "that  our  Re- 
deemer and  Substitute  bore  our  sicknesses,  it  would  be 
natural  to  reason  at  once  that  He  bore  them  that  we 


SIN  AND  SICKNESS  175 

might  not  bear  them."  As,  then,  "we  urge  the  trans- 
gressor to  accept  the  Lord  Jesus  as  his  sin-bearer,  that  he 
may  no  longer  have  to  bear  the  pains  and  penalties  of  his 
disobedience,"  so  we  should  urge  the  sick  "  to  accept  Him 
as  his  pain-bearer." 31  Otto  Stockmayer  is  quoted  as 
teaching32  "that  if  our  Redeemer  bore  our  sicknesses  it 
is  not  his  will  that  his  children  should  remain  under  the 
power  of  disease,  any  more  than  that,  having  borne  our 
sins,  it  is  his  will  that  they  should  remain  under  con- 
demnation and  disobedience."  In  enunciating  the  same 
doctrine,  Stanton  makes  use  of  the  remarkable  expressions,33 
"that  the  Atonement  was  not  only  made  for  sin  but  for 
disease,  the  fruit  of  sin,"  and  "that  in  atoning  for  our  dis- 
eases of  body,  just  as  for  our  sins  of  soul,  Christ  took  them 
upon  Himself  that  He  might  bear  them  away,  and  thus  re- 
lieve His  people  from  the  need  of  bearing  them." 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  more  confused  expressions 
than  these.  What  exact  meaning  can  be  attached,  for 
example,  to  the  phrase,  "atonement  for  disease"?  Is  it 
intended  to  suggest  that  disease  is  fault  for  which  we  are 
responsible?  Atonement  can  be  made  only  for  fault. 
And  why  should  the  phrase,  "bear  disease  away"  be  em- 
ployed in  connection  with  this  text?  Does  not  the  word 
employed  here  for  "bearing  sickness"  express  not  bearing 
away,  removing,  but  bearing,  enduring?  And  by  what 
right  can  Stockmayer — the  "theologian  of  Faith-Healing," 
as  he  is  called — parallel  the  "power  of  disease"  with  "con- 
demnation and  disobedience"  as  alike  taken  away  by 
Christ's  redemption,  unless  he  means  to  convey  the  idea 
that,  as  there  is  now  no  condemnation  to  them  in  Christ 
Jesus,  so  there  can  now  be  no  disease  to  them  that  are  in 
Christ  Jesus;  and  as  all  disobedience  is  wilful  and  sinful, 
so  also  is  all  sickness  ?  If  so,  we  can  only  infer  that  none 
of  us  are  in  Christ  Jesus:  our  universal  physical  decay  and 
death  are  but  the  external  manifestations  of  our  inward 
corruption  and  our  eternal  doom.34 


176  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

It  will  doubtless  be  more  profitable,  however,  to  seek 
to  lay  our  finger  on  the  source  of  error  in  the  statement  of 
the  doctrine,  and  to  correct  it,  than  to  track  out  all  its 
confusions.  This  error  does  not  lie  in  the  supposition  that 
redemption  is  for  the  body  as  well  as  the  soul,  and  that  the 
saved  man  shall  be  renewed  in  the  one  as  well  as  in  the 
other.  This  is  true.  Nor  does  it  lie  in  the  supposition 
that  provision  is  made  in  the  atonement  for  the  relief  of 
men  from  disease  and  suffering,  which  are  fruits  of  sin. 
This  too  is  true.35  It  lies  in  confusing  redemption  itself, 
which  is  objective  and  takes  place  outside  of  us,  with  its 
subjective  effects,  which  take  place  in  us;  and  in  failing  to 
recognize  that  these  subjective  effects  of  redemption  are 
wrought  in  us  gradually  and  in  a  definite  order.  Ideally 
all  of  Christ's  children  were  saved  before  the  foundation 
of  the  world,  when  they  were  set  upon  by  God's  love,  and 
given  by  the  Father  to  the  Son  to  be  saved  by  Him.  Ob- 
jectively they  were  saved  when  Christ  died  for  them  on 
the  tree,  purchasing  them  to  Himself  by  His  own  precious 
blood.  This  salvation  was  made  their  personal  possession 
in  principle  when  they  were  regenerated  by  the  Holy  Spirit, 
purchased  for  them  by  the  death  of  Christ  in  their  behalf. 
It  was  made  over  to  them  judicially  on  their  believing  in 
Christ,  in  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost  thus  given  to  them. 
But  it  is  completed  in  them  in  its  full  effects  only  when  at 
the  Judgment  Day  they  stand,  sanctified  souls,  clothed  in 
glorified  bodies,  before  the  throne  of  God,  meet  for  the  in- 
heritance of  the  saints  in  light.  Here,  you  perceive,  is  a 
process.  Even  after  we  have  believed  in  Christ,  and  have 
a  title  as  justified  men  to  the  benefits  bought  for  us  by  His 
blood  and  righteousness,  entrance  into  the  actual  enjoy- 
ment of  these  several  benefits  remains  a  process,  and  a  long 
process,  to  be  completed  in  a  definite  order.  This  is  true 
of  the  spiritual  blessings  which  come  to  us  through  the 
atonement  of  Christ.  We  are  no  longer  under  the  curse  of 
sin.    But  we  remain  sinners.     The  struggle  against  indwell- 


PROCESS  OF  SALVATION  177 

ing  sin,  and  therefore  indwelling  sin  to  struggle  against, 
continues  through  life.  We  have  not  yet  obtained,  and  we 
are  not  yet  made  perfect.  It  is  little  that  we  continue  also 
physically  weak,  liable  to  disease,  and  certain  to  die.  For 
the  removal  of  these  physical  evils,  too,  provision  is  made 
in  the  atonement.  But  the  benefit  here  too  is  not  received 
all  at  once.  For  us,  as  in  the  broader  sphere  of  the  world's 
salvation,  death  is  the  last  enemy  to  be  conquered.  Though 
the  redeemed  of  the  Lord  and  no  longer  under  the  dominion 
of  sin,  the  results  of  sin  remain  with  us:  inwardly  we  are 
corrupt,  outwardly  we  are  the  prey  of  weakness  and  dis- 
ease and  death.  We  shall  not  escape  from  either  in  this 
life.  Who  is  there  that  sins  not?  And  who  is  there  that 
does  not  suffer  and  die?  But  ultimately  we  are  relieved 
from  both.  Of  indwelling  corruption  when  our  sanctifica- 
tion  is  completed  and,  having  been  made  holy,  we  depart, 
which  is  far  better,  to  be  with  the  Lord,  the  Holy  One.  Of 
outward  weaknesses,  at  that  redemption  of  the  body  which, 
while  here  below,  we  only,  groaning  and  travailing  in  pain, 
wait  for  in  its  due  season — that  is,  at  the  resurrection,  when 
death  shall  be  swallowed  up  in  victory.  This  is  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Bible;  and  this  is  what  Christ  illustrated  when 
He  healed  the  sick  in  His  ministry  on  earth  that  men  might 
see,  as  in  an  object-lesson,  that  provision  was  made  in  His 
substitutionary  work  for  the  relief  of  every  human  ill. 
There  is  included  in  this,  however,  no  promise  that  this 
relief  is  to  be  realized  in  its  completeness  all  at  once,  or  in 
this  earthly  life.  Our  Lord  never  permitted  it  for  a  mo- 
ment to  be  imagined  that  the  salvation  He  brought  was 
fundamentally  for  this  life.  His  was  emphatically  an  other-  -  ^ 
world  religion.  He  constantly  pointed  to  the  beyond,  and  $T* 
bade  men  find  their  true  home,  to  set  their  hopes,  and  txj^---  ^  ^ 
place  their  aspirations,  there. 

But,  we  are  asked,  are  there  not  to  be  prelibations 
here?  Is  there  no  "intermediate  work  of  healing  and  re- 
covery for  the  body"  here  as  there  is  "a  vast  intermediate 


178  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

work  of  cleansing  and  renewal  effected  for  the  soul?"36 
Assuredly.  The  good  man  will  not  fail  to  be  the  better 
for  his  goodness  even  in  his  bodily  life.  Of  course  we  may 
make  an  absurd  application  of  even  so  obvious  a  maxim. 
That  devout  physician  whom  we  had  occasion  to  quote  a 
while  ago,  warns  us  against  such  an  absurd  application. 
He  is  unwise,  he  declares,37  who  teaches  "Obey  the  com- 
mandments, the  laws  of  spiritual  life,  and  you  will  there- 
by attain  physical  health."  "That  does  not  follow,"  he 
declares.  "As  well  say,  'Obey  the  commandments  and 
you  will  become  large  possessors  of  this  world's  goods,'  or, 
'Obey  the  commandments  and  you  will  therefore  be  ex- 
empt from  the  law  of  gravitation.'"  What  he  means  to 
say  is  that  the  Lord,  in  placing  His  people  in  this  complex 
of  forces  whose  regular  working  constitutes  what  we  call 
the  laws  of  nature,  subjects  them,  of  course,  to  these  laws. 
We  cannot  expect  to  be  emancipated  from  the  laws  which 
govern  the  action  of  the  forces  in  the  midst  of  which  our 
life  is  cast.  That  would  be  to  take  us  out  of  the  world. 
No  matter  how  holy  we  are  we  must  expect,  if  we  cast  our- 
selves from  a  tenth-story  window,  to  fall  with  the  same 
certainty  and  with  the  same  rate  of  accelerating  velocity 
as  other  men.  The  law  of  gravity  is  not  suspended  in  its 
action  on  us  by  our  moral  character.  We  cannot  grow 
rich  by  simply  rubbing  some  Aladdin's  lamp  and  com- 
manding supernatural  assistance ;  economic  law  will  govern 
the  acquisition  of  wealth  in  our  case  as  in  that  of  others. 
When  typhoid  germs  find  lodgment  in  a  body,  even  though 
it  be  the  body  of  a  saint,  they  will  under  favorable  con- 
ditions, grow  and  produce  all  their  dreadful  effects,  with  the 
same  certainty  with  which  the  seeds  of  corn  which  you 
cast  into  the  ground  grow  and  bring  forth  their  harvest. 
The  same  laws  on  which  you  depend  for  the  harvest  of 
corn,  you  may  equally  depend  on  for  the  harvests  of  dis- 
ease which  you  reap  year  after  year.  We  live  then  in  a 
complex  of  forces  out  of  which  we  cannot  escape,  so  long 


GOD'S  PROVIDENCE  AND   GRACE  179 

as  we  are  in  this  world,  and  these  forces  make  for  disease 
and  death.  We  are  all  left  here,  like  Trophimus  at  Mile- 
turn,  sick.  And  if  we  insist  upon  being  relieved  of  this 
sickness  we  can  expect  only  the  answer  which  was  given 
to  Paul:  "My  grace  is  sufficient  for  you." 

All  this  is  true,  and  yet  it  too  is  not  incapable  of  exag- 
geration in  its  application.  And  that  for  two  very  obvious 
reasons.  In  the  first  place  it  also  is  a  law  of  nature  that 
the  pure  in  heart  and  clean  in  conduct  escape  many  evils, 
among  which  must  be  ranged  multifarious  sicknesses.  We 
need  not  labor  so  obvious  a  point.38  We  find  even  Matthew 
Arnold  remarking  on  this  law  in  his  allusive  manner. 
"Medical  science,"  says  he,39  "has  never  gauged — never 
perhaps  set  itself  to  gauge — the  intimate  connection  be- 
tween moral  fault  and  disease.  To  what  extent,  or  in  how 
many  cases,  what  is  called  illness  is  due  to  moral  springs 
having  been  used  amiss,  whether  by  being  overused  or  by 
not  being  used  sufficiently — we  hardly  at  all  know,  and  we 
too  little  inquire."  But  we  do  not  found  here  solely  on  a 
law  of  nature.  Even  the  laws  of  nature  are  under  the  con- 
trol of  God  in  their  operation,  and  we  point  to  the  good 
providence  of  our  God.  The  Lord  is  rich  in  mercy  to  them 
that  trust  in  Him,  and  it  would  be  strange  indeed  if  there 
were  no  visible  and  tangible  fruits  of  this  His  mercy  per- 
ceptible in  our  bodily  life.  There  is  a  promise  for  this  life 
as  well  as  for  that  which  is  to  come,  and  it  is  definitely  said 
that  to  those  who  seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His 
righteousness,  all  these  things  shall  be  added.  Are  not  the 
providence  and  grace  of  God  enough  for  us  in  this  "our 
little  journey  in  the  world"?  Or,  dissatisfied  with  these, 
are  we  to  demand  that  the  laws  of  nature  be  suspended  in 
our  case;  that,  though  in  the  world,  we  shall,  in  this  sense 
too,  be  not  of  it  ?  What  scriptural  ground  is  there  for  ex- 
pecting miraculous  healings  of  the  body  through  these  ages 
of  our  earthly  pilgrimage,  in  addition  to  that  benefit  which 
the  body  obtains  from  its  animation  by  a  renewed  and  sane- 


180  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

tifying  soul,  from  our  Lord's  watchfulness  over  it  as  His 
purchased  possession,  from  the  indwelling  in  it  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  as  His  Temple,  from  the  Father's  listening  to 
the  prayers  of  His  saints  for  its  keeping  and  healing,  and 
from  all  God's  goodness  to  it  in  fulfilment  of  His  word  that 
godliness  has  the  promise  of  the  life  that  now  is  as  well  as 
that  which  is  to  come?  None  has  been  pointed  to,  and 
we  are  constrained  to  believe  none  exists.  For  soul  and 
body  we  are  in  the  Lord's  loving  keeping.  We  trust  in 
Him  and  He  keeps  us.  There  is  no  specific  promise  that 
He  will  keep  us  otherwise  than  by  His  providence  and  grace. 
Do  not  these  suffice  for  all  our  needs? 

We  have  examined  all  the  scriptural  passages  formally 
appealed  to  by  Gordon.  The  considerations  which  he 
places  under  the  heading  of  "the  testimony  of  reason," 
however,  are  closely  related  to  the  scriptural  argument, 
and  no  doubt  require  a  passing  word.  They  are  these: 
(i)  that,  "if  miracles  should  cease,  they  would  form  quite 
a  distinct  exception  to  everything  else  which  the  Lord  in- 
troduced by  His  ministry";  and  (2)  that  "the  use  of  mir- 
acles of  healing  as  signs  seems  to  argue  strongly  for  their 
permanency;  if  the  substance  remains  unchanged,  why 
should  the  sign  which  was  originally  chosen  to  exhibit  it 
be  superseded?"  The  force  of  the  argument  here  lies  in 
its  assumptions.  If  we  begin  by  assuming  that  miracle- 
working  was  instituted  by  our  Lord  as  an  ordinance  of  the 
Christian  religion;  was  established,  like  Baptism  and  the 
Lord's  Supper,  as  a  visible,  permanent  sign  of  the  invisible 
reality;  why,  of  course,  their  cessation  becomes  a  striking 
exception  to  the  rule  and  calls  for  explanation.  But 
clearly  there  is  nothing  to  justify  these  assumptions.  And 
if  there  were,  too  much  would  be  proved  to  suit  the  case. 
For  Gordon  proceeds  at  once  to  argue  that  only  miracles 
of  healing  abide.  But  surely  it  cannot  be  contended  that 
only  miracles  of  healing  were  introduced  by  our  Lord  by 
His  ministry,  and  only  His  miracles  of  healing  were  "signs." 
If  Gordon's  argument  is  worth  anything  it  proves  that  all 


APPEAL  TO  FACTS  181 

forms  of  miracle-working  practised  by  Christ  were  con- 
tinued as  the  permanent  possession  of  His  church.  It  is 
not  even  claimed  that  that  is  the  fact. 

It  might  not  be  absolutely  fatal  to  the  assertions  of  the 
Faith-Healers  that  the  scriptural  grounds  on  which  they 
base  them  prove  too  precarious  to  bear  their  weight.  It  is 
conceivable  that  the  fact  of  the  continuance  of  miraculous 
healing  could  be  made  so  clear  that  we  should  be  com- 
pelled to  confess  its  continuance  though  no  Scripture  had 
promised  it.  Stanton  prefers  to  take  this  attitude  toward 
the  matter.  He  deprecates  beginning  with  scriptural 
"theory"  and  thence  proceeding  to  investigate  "fact,"  as 
essentially  an  a  priori  method.  He  insists  that  "  the  ques- 
tion is  pre-eminently  one  of  fact";  which  can  only  be  fairly 
tested  by  a  "process  of  rigid  induction."  " Facts  are  never 
heresies,"  he  says,  "either  in  science  or  religion."  Accord- 
ingly he  proposes  to  begin  with  facts  and  argue  back  from 
them  to  their  true  cause.  He  opens  his  discussion,  there- 
fore, with  a  collection  of  selected  cases  which  he  represents 
as  undeniable  in  point  of  fact  and  details,  and  as  of  such 
inherent  character,  being  immediate  healings  by  prayer  of 
organic  diseases,  that  they  necessitate  the  conclusion  that 
they  are  veritable  miracles.  From  the  fact  of  miracle- 
working,  thus  established,  he  turns  back  to  the  Scripture, 
to  see  whether  it  is  possible  that  it  contains  no  warrant 
for  such  great  transactions.  There  is  a  certain  apparent 
strength  in  this  mode  of  procedure.  It  involves,  however, 
a  confession  of  the  weakness  of  the  scriptural  evidence. 
If  the  evidence  of  Scripture  were  felt  to  be  in  itself  conclu- 
sive, its  consideration  would  scarcely  be  postponed  until 
facts  were  accumulated  to  guide  in  its  interpretation. 
Gordon's  method  of  appealing  to  Scripture  first,  certainly 
does  more  honor  to  Scripture  and  gives  the  impression  that 
in  dealing  with  it  he  feels  himself  on  solid  ground.  The 
scriptural  evidence  having  failed,  however,  his  case  too  falls 
back  on  the  bald  facts  of  experience. 

The  titles  of  the  chapters  in  which  Gordon  adduces  the 


182  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

testimony  of  the  alleged  miraculous  facts,  have  already- 
been  enumerated.  He  calls  in  turn  upon  the  witness  of  the 
church,  of  theologians,  of  missions,  of  the  adversary,  of 
experience,  and  of  the  healed.  There  is  an  almost  too 
great  completeness  in  this  accumulation  of  sources  of  testi- 
mony. There  is  nevertheless  observable  a  certain  eclecti- 
cism in  dealing  with  it.  The  testimony  of  the  church,  for 
instance,  does  not  mean  the  testimony  of  the  church  speak- 
ing as  an  organized  body — whether  as  a  whole  or  in  some 
one  or  other  of  its  organized  sections.  It  means  the  testi- 
mony of  Christians  of  the  past,  the  record  of  which  is 
found  in  what  is  called  "church  history."  It  is  a  very 
eclectic  "church  history,"  however,  which  is  appealed  to. 
The  testimony  of  the  first  three  centuries  is  adduced,  and 
partly  that  of  the  fourth.  Then  comes  a  sharp  break,  at 
the  age  of  Constantine,  at  which  time,  as  we  have  shown, 
really  explicit  evidence  only  begins.  Later,  it  is  true,  un- 
der the  caption  of  "The  Testimony  of  Theologians,"  Augus- 
tine's opinion  is  cited — with  what  consistency  we  may 
judge  when  we  observe  that  all  the  miracles  of  "the  Apos- 
tate Church,"  which  is  said  to  have  begun  with  the  age 
of  Constantine,40  are  declared  to  be  "the  testimony  of  the 
Adversary,"  working  counterfeit  miracles,  and  only  so 
bearing  witness  to  the  currency  of  the  true.  In  this  chap- 
ter on  "The  Testimony  of  the  Church"  we  are  carried  over 
at  once  to  the  testimony  of  the  Waldenses,  Moravians, 
Huguenots,  Covenanters,  Friends,  early  Baptists  and 
Methodists.  With  reference  to  these  the  remark  is  made 
that,  in  every  revival  of  primitive  faith,  "we  find  a  pro- 
fession of  chaste  and  evangelical  miracles."  How  far  this 
description  applies  to  the  marvels  it  has  professedly  in 
view  we  must  let  the  reader  of  the  annals  of  those  troubled 
movements  himself  decide.  We  think  ourselves  that  a 
remark  made  by  Gordon  at  an  earlier  point  is  far  more 
applicable  to  them:  when  he  spoke  of  the  likelihood  of 
every  true  upstirring  of  genuine  emotion  being  accom- 


THE   FAITH-HOUSES  183 

parried  by  more  or  less  fanaticism  which  ought  not  to  be 
permitted  to  cloud  our  judgment  as  to  the  genuineness  of 
the  emotion  itself.  The  testimony  of  theologians  is,  natu- 
rally, a  matter  of  opinion,  while  that  of  missions,  experience, 
and  of  the  healed  themselves  is  only  a  further  record  of 
facts,  artificially  divided  into  these  heads,  which  constitute 
in  their  totality  the  whole  evidence  before  us.  It  is  to  the 
facts  thus  gathered  that  we  are  to  give  our  attention. 

What  now  are  these  facts?  What  is  their  nature? 
And  what  are  we  to  think  of  them  ?  The  first  thing  which 
strikes  the  observer,  as  he  casts  his  eye  over  them,  is  that 
they  stand  sadly  in  need  of  careful  sifting.  What  we  are 
looking  for  is  such  facts  as  necessitate  or  at  least  suggest 
the  assumption,  in  order  to  account  for  them,  of  the  ''im- 
mediate action  of  God,  as  distinguished  from  His  mediate 
action  through  natural  laws."  That  is  Gordon's  own 
definition  of  miracle,41  and  what  is  affirmed  is  that  these 
facts  argue  miraculous  action.  The  great  body  of  the 
facts  offered  to  us,  however,  argue  nothing  of  the  kind. 

In  many  of  them  means  are  openly  used,  means  which 
rank  among  the  specifically  best  means  known  to  medical 
science.  This  is  the  case,  for  example,  with  all  the  instances 
of  cures  made  in  the  Faith-Houses.  Who  doubts  that 
multitudes  of  the  sick  would  find  cure  under  the  skilled  and 
tireless  nursing  of  a  Dorothea  Triidel,  who  was  known  to 
pass  the  whole  day  without  food,  utterly  forgetting  the 
claims  of  her  body  in  devotion  to  her  work  ? 42  Who 
doubts  that  great  physical  benefit  could  be  found  by  many 
in  "  the  silence  and  retirement  of  the  simple  cure  of  Pastor 
Rein"?  Doctor  Weir  Mitchell  won  fame  as  a  physician 
through  his  "rest-cure."  What  medical  man  will  not 
agree  that  good  nursing  and  a  quiet  and  restful  state  of 
body  and  mind  are  among  the  best  of  curative  agents? 
The  very  existence  of  Faith-Houses,  indeed,  is  the  sufficient 
refutation  of  the  doctrine  of  Faith-Healing  which  seeks 
support   from   them.     By   hypothesis   a   miraculous   cure 


184  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

should  be  immediate,  as  in  cause  so  in  time — without  de- 
lay as  without  means — on  the  exercise  of  simple  faith.  The 
existence  of  Faith-Hospitals  is  a  standing  proof  that  it  is 
not  immediate,  either  in  cause  or  in  time:  that  a  place  of 
retirement  is  helpful,  and  that  good  nursing  has  its  reward. 
Faith-Houses  may  raise  a  protest  against  the  methods  of 
current  medical  practice,  but  they  do  so  by  setting  up  a 
particular  method  of  practice  of  their  own — not  by  intro- 
ducing miraculous  healing  as  over  against  natural. 

It  is  observable,  further,  that  the  cases  which  are  suc- 
cessfully treated  in  the  Faith-Houses  have  their  natural 
limits.  Not  every  one  is  cured.  The  brother  of  Samuel 
Zeller,  who  succeeded  Dorothea  Triidel  in  her  House  in 
Switzerland,  sought  cure  there  for  years  in  vain.  Doro- 
thea TriidePs  own  health  remained  throughout  her  life 
"very  feeble" ;  she  suffered  from  curvature  of  the  spine  from 
an  early  age  and  died  at  forty-eight  of  typhus  fever.  Zeller 
himself  "strongly  repudiated  the  whole  system  of  doctrine" 
of  the  typical  Faith-Healers,  especially  "the  idea  that  sick- 
ness in  God's  people  is  the  result  of  unbelief";  and  sharply 
reprobated  the  practice  of  holding  public  meetings  and  ex- 
pecting cures  at  them,  attributing  failure  to  lack  of  faith. 
He  did  not  require  that  medical  treatment  should  be  re- 
nounced ;  he  merely  put  his  own  dependence  on  rest,  quiet, 
and  prayer  to  God.43  The  failures  of  cure  on  this  system 
cannot  be  accounted  for  merely  by  an  appeal  to  the  sover- 
eignty of  God  in  answering  prayer.  They  find  their  ac- 
count also  in  the  nature  of  the  diseases  treated.  We  quote 
the  following  from  the  pen  of  one  of  the  most  eminent 
aurists  of  the  last  generation.  "The  avoidance  of  tangible 
affections  by  faith-curers,"  says  Doctor  St.  John  Roosa,44 
"is  a  circumstance  that  tells  unanswerably  against  their 
doctrines.  I  was  once  sent  for  to  see  a  lady  who  was  living 
in  what  was  called  a  faith-cure  establishment  in  this  city, 
in  order  that  I  might,  if  possible,  relieve  her  from  impair- 
ment of  hearing.    This  I  found  to  be  chiefly  caused  by  a 


LIMITS   OF  CURES  185 

collection  of  wax  in  the  outer  canal  of  the  ear,  which  was 
easily  removed.  The  removal  caused  great  improvement 
in  the  hearing.  I  had  never  seen  a  faith-cure  establish- 
ment before,  and  I  confess  I  was  somewhat  surprised  that 
I  was  sent  for.  I  asked,  'How  is  it  possible,  that,  if  without 
the  use  of  any  means  except  prayer  to  God,  internal  dis- 
eases are  cured,  affections  of  the  organs  that  we  cannot 
see,  those  that  we  can  see,  and  that  are  susceptible  of  relief 
by  the  ordinary  physician,  believing  or  unbelieving,  cannot 
be  cured  by  prayer?  .  .  .'  It  is  a  terrible  shock  to  the 
believer  in  this  system  to  think  that  God  can  cure  a  case 
of  disease  of  the  liver  or  of  the  nerves,  and  will  cure  it  by 
the  use  of  the  prayer  of  faith  alone,  but  (and  I  mean  to 
speak  reverently)  He  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  a  case 
of  deafness." 

We  think  it  fair  to  urge  also  that  the  sifting  of  cases  must 
exclude  all  those  cures  which  can  be  paralleled  by  cures 
that  have,  in  similar  circumstances,  been  effected  obviously 
without  miracle.  If  we  are  seeking  instances  which  demon- 
strate that  a  miracle  has  been  wrought,  surely  we  must 
have  cases  essentially  different  from  those  which  are  known 
to  be  curable  without  miracle.  Obviously,  for  example, 
we  cannot  confidently  infer  miracle  to  account  for  a  cure 
which  "the  Apostate  Church"  can  perform  as  well  as  we; 
which  mind-cure  can  equally  readily  work  on  a  pantheistic, 
the  Buddhist  on  an  atheistic,  and  the  mesmerist  on  a 
purely  materialistic  basis.  These  cures  may  seem  to  us 
startling,  but  they  cannot  be  thought  by  us  to  be  mirac- 
ulous. It  is,  however,  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the 
great  mass  of  the  cures  wrought  by  Faith-Healers  are 
closely  paralleled  by  some  or  all  of  these  sister  practitioners. 
Your  time  need  not  be  taken  up  by  descriptions  here  of  the 
wonders  worked  by  Doctor  Perkins's  metallic  tractors, 
by  mesmerism,  mind-cure,  the  waters  of  Lourdes.45  Let 
me  give  you  but  a  single  partial  illustration  of  how  com- 
pletely they  repeat  one  another's  triumphs. 


186  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

Stanton  rests  his  case  for  Faith-Healing  on  a  half-dozen 
wisely  chosen  instances.  The  first  one  which  he  gives  is 
that  of  a  young  woman  with  "a  withered  hand  which  was 
bent  in  upon  her  wrist  as  no  well  hand  by  any  act  of  the 
will  can  be,  and  presented  nothing  but  a  mass  of  skin  and 
bones,  with  not  a  vein  visible  upon  it."  This  withered 
hand  was  cured  by  prayer.  Well,  here  is  first  a  Roman 
Catholic  parallel  among  the  cures  of  Prince  Hohenlohe: 
"Captain  Ruthlein,  an  old  gentleman  of  Thundorf,  seventy 
years  of  age,  who  had  long  been  pronounced  incurable  of 
paralysis  which  kept  his  hand  clinched,  and  who  had  not 
left  his  room  for  many  years,  was  perfectly  cured."  46 
And  here  is  a  parallel  from  mesmerism:  "Edward  Wine, 
aged  seventy-five,  who  had  been  paralyzed  ten  years  in 
an  arm  and  leg.  The  left  arm  was  spasmodically  fixed  to 
the  chest,  the  fingers  drawn  toward  the  palm  of  the  hand 
and  wasted,  quite  incapable  of  holding  anything."  Per- 
fectly cured  by  mesmerism.47  And  here  is  a  parallel  from 
imagination:  Sir  Humphrey  Davy  placed  a  thermometer 
under  the  tongue  of  a  paralyzed  patient  simply  to  ascer- 
tain the  temperature;  the  patient  at  once  claimed  to  ex- 
perience relief,  so  the  same  treatment  was  continued  for 
two  weeks,  and  by  that  time  the  patient  was  well.48  And, 
finally,  here  is  a  somewhat  similar  case  from  pure  decep- 
tion. "The  wife  and  mother  of  the  house  was  suffering 
from  inflammatory  rheumatism  in  its  worst  form.  She 
could  not  move,  was  terribly  swollen,  and  could  not  bear 
to  be  touched.  .  .  .  One  of  the  hands  of  the  patient  was 
fearfully  swollen,  so  that  the  fingers  were  as  large  very  nearly 
as  the  wrist  of  an  ordinary  child  three  years  of  age.  .  .  . 
Nearly  all  the  space  between  the  fingers  was  occupied  and 
the  fist  was  clinched.  It  was  plain  that  to  open  them 
voluntarily  was  impossible,  and  to  move  them  intensely 
painful.  .  .  .  The  hand  had  not  been  opened  for  several 
weeks."  "I  held,"  says  Doctor  Buckley,  the  operator,49 
"two  knitting-needles  about  two  inches  from  the  ends  of  the 


SOURCES  OF  CURES  187 

woman's  fingers,  just  above  the  clinched  hand,  and  said, 
'Now,  Madam,  do  not  think  of  your  fingers,  and  above 
all  do  not  try  to  move  them,  but  fix  your  eyes  on  the  ends 
of  these  needles.'  She  did  so  .  .  .  and  the  fingers  straight- 
ened out  and  became  flexible  without  the  least  pain.  I 
then  moved  the  needles  about,  and  she  declared  that  all 
pain  left  her  hand  except  in  one  spot  about  half  an  inch  in 
length."  The  fact  is  that  imagination  and  concentrated 
attention  are  powers  which  need  to  be  reckoned  with  in  all 
cures,  and  only  such  cures  as  exclude  a  possible  appeal  to 
them,  or  to  shock,  or  the  like,  are  available  for  evidence  of 
the  miraculous.  The  simulation  of  disease  by  hysteria  is 
also  very  remarkable.  There  was  a  woman  in  St.  Luke's 
Hospital,  New  York  City,  who  had  a  tumor  to  all,  even  the 
most  skilled,  diagnosis.  But  the  tumor  simply  disappeared 
on  the  administration  of  ether  and  the  consequent  with- 
drawal of  nervous  action.50  When  all  these  cases  are  ex- 
cluded, the  list  left  as  available  evidence  for  miraculous 
action  will  be  short  indeed. 

Sifting  is  not  even  yet,  however,  at  an  end.  We  must 
exclude  also  all  cures  which  seem  to  us,  indeed,  to  have 
come  in  answer  to  prayer,  but  of  which  there  is  no  evidence 
that  they  have  come  miraculously,  that  is,  by  the  immediate 
action  of  God,  without  all  means.  The  famous  cure  of 
Canon  Basil  Wilberforce  is  a  typical  instance  of  what  we 
mean.  He  declares  that  he  has  no  shadow  of  doubt  that 
he  "was  healed  by  the  Lord's  blessing  upon  His  own  word, 
recorded  in  St.  James  5:15,  16."  "But,"  he  adds,  "as  in 
so  many  other  cases,  there  was  sufficient  margin  of  time, 
and  possibility  of  change  of  tissue,  between  the  anointing 
and  the  recovery  to  justify  the  sceptic  in  disconnecting  the 
two."51  All  Christians  believe  in  healing  in  answer  to 
prayer.  Those  who  assert  that  this  healing  is  wrought  in 
a  specifically  miraculous  manner,  need  better  evidence  for 
their  peculiar  view  than  such  as  fits  in  equally  well  with 
the  general  Christian  faith. 


188  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

Finally  it  must  be  added  with  great  firmness  that  sifting 
is  needed  by  the  cases  reported  by  the  Faith-Healers  to 
isolate  the  instances  the  details  of  which  can  be  trusted. 
Of  certain  obvious  facts  any  honestly  disposed  person  is  a 
competent  witness;  of  certain  others  few  persons  are  com- 
petent witnesses.  Among  these  latter  facts  may  safely  be 
classed  the  accurate  diagnosis  of  disease.  Few  physicians, 
of  even  lifelong  practice,  are  really  good  diagnosticians; 
perhaps  there  is  none  of  whatever  eminence  who  has  not 
been  more  than  once  wholly  deceived  in  the  nature  of  the 
disease  he  has  been  called  upon  to  treat — as  the  autopsy 
has  proved.52  Every  one  who  has  sought  to  trace  up  al- 
leged cases  of  Faith-Healing  will  have  felt  the  grave  doubt 
which  frequently  rests  upon  the  identification  of  the  dis- 
ease which  is  asserted  to  have  been  cured.  Yet  we  are 
asked  to  believe  in  multifarious  miracles  on  the  faith  of 
the  diagnosis  of  this,  that,  or  the  other  unknown  person. 
Nothing  is  more  remarkable  than  the  scorn  which  the  aver- 
age Faith-Healer  pours  on  physicians  as  healers,  and  the  un- 
bounded confidence  which  he  reposes  in  them  as  diagnosti- 
cians. It  is  with  him  the  end  of  all  strife  if  he  can  say  that 
the  case  was  hopeless  on  the  testimony  of  Doctor  This  or 
Doctor  That. 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  it  must  even  be  said  that  Faith- 
Healers,  in  their  enthusiasm  over  the  wonderful  things 
they  are  testifying  to,  are  not  always  as  careful  as  they 
might  be  in  ascertaining  the  actual  facts  of  the  cases  of 
cure  which  they  report.  It  may  seem  to  them  sometimes 
almost  a  sacrilege  to  make  so  close  an  inquisition  into  the 
facts,  the  cold  facts,  when  so  much  has  obviously  been 
done.  Gordon  records,53  with  apparent  approval,  the  re- 
ply of  one  of  a  visiting  body  of  German  preachers  and  pro- 
fessors, when  inspecting  Zeller's  Faith-Home  in  Switzerland. 
When  asked  to  give  his  opinion  of  the  work,  he  responded: 
"When  the  Holy  Spirit  speaks  with  so  much  power,  we 
can  do  no  otherwise  than  listen  to  His  teaching;  critical 


A  TEST  CASE  189 

analysis  is  out  of  the  question."  But  the  Holy  Spirit  Him- 
self says,  "Try  the  Spirits,  whether  they  be  of  God,"  and 
it  is  no  more  good  religion  than  good  sense,  in  a  matter  of 
such  moment,  to  abnegate  the  functions  of  a  critic.  It  is 
necessary  for  even  pious  men  to  guard  against  misleading 
their  fellows. 

The  matter  may  be  illustrated  by  the  case  of  one  of  the 
most  celebrated  instances  of  Faith-Healing  ever  wrought 
in  America.    It  was  deservedly  celebrated,  because  it  took 
place  in  a  sphere  of  operation  into  which  Faith-Healing 
rarely  penetrates.    It  was  nothing  less  than  the  instan- 
taneous knitting  of  a  broken  bone  in  answer  to  prayer. 
Doctor  Charles  Cullis  is  said  to  have  reported  it  to  Doctor 
W.  E.  Boardman,  who  printed  it  in  his  book  called  The 
Great  Physician.     Gordon  quotes  it  from  Boardman,  and 
Stanton  makes  it  one  of  his  test  cases.    The  narrative  comes 
ultimately  from  the  father  of  the  boy  in  question,  "Doctor 
Reed  a  physician  of  Philadelphia."    The  story  as  reported 
in  his  words  by  Boardman  is  this:   "The  children  were 
jumping  off  from  a  bench,  and  my  little  son  fell  and  broke 
both  bones  of  his  arm  below  the  elbow.    My  brother,  who  is  a 
professor  of  surgery  in  the  college  at  Chicago,  was  here  on  a 
visit.    I  asked  him  to  set  and  dress  the  arm.    He  did  so; 
put  it  in  splints,  bandages,  and  in  a  sling.    The  dear  child 
was  very  patient,  and  went  about  without  a  murmur  all  that 
day.    The  next  morning  he  came  to  me  and  said:  'Dear 
papa,  please  take  off  these  things.'    '  Oh  no,  my  son,  you  will 
have  to  wear  these  five  or  six  weeks  before  it  will  be  well.' 
'Why,  papa,  it  is  well.'     'Oh  no,  my  dear  child,  that  is 
impossible!'     'Why,  papa,  you  believe  in  prayer,  don't 
you  ? '     '  You  know  I  do,  my  son. '    '  Well,  last  night  when 
I  went  to  bed,  it  hurt  me  very  bad,  and  I  asked  Jesus  to 
make  it  well.'    I  did  not  like  to  say  a  word  to  chill  his 
faith.    A  happy  thought  came.    I  said,  'My  dear  child, 
your  uncle  put  the  things  on,  and  if  they  are  taken  off  he 
must  do  it.'    Away  he  went  to  his  uncle,  who  told  him  he 


190  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

would  have  to  go  as  he  was  six  or  seven  weeks,  and  must 
be  very  patient;  and  when  the  little  fellow  told  him  that 
Jesus  had  made  him  well,  he  said,  '  Pooh !  pooh !  nonsense ! ' 
and  sent  him  away.  The  next  morning  the  poor  boy  came 
to  me  and  pleaded  with  so  much  sincerity  and  confidence, 
that  I  more  than  half  believed,  and  went  to  my  brother 
and  said:  'Had  you  not  better  undo  his  arm  and  let  him 
see  for  himself?'  .  .  .  My  brother  yielded,  took  off  the 
bandages  and  the  splints,  and  exclaimed,  'It  is  well,  abso- 
lutely well ! '  and  hastened  to  the  door  to  keep  from  faint- 
ing." Could  anything  be  more  conclusive?  Here  is  ex- 
pert medical  testimony  to  the  fracture  and  to  the  cure  also. 
Here  is  the  testimony  of  the  father  himself,  a  chief  actor 
in  the  scene,  to  all  its  details.  We  have  the  additional 
guarantee  of  the  repetition  of  it  as  authentic  by  a  series  of 
the  chief  advocates  of  Faith-Healing.  And  it  is  a  case  of 
a  broken  bone,  and  must  be  a  miracle.  But  here  comes 
the  trouble.  "The  case  was  thoroughly  investigated  by 
Doctor  J.  H.  Lloyd  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
in  The  Medical  Record  for  March  27,  1886,  Doctor  Lloyd 
published  a  letter  from  this  very  child,  who  is  grown  up  and 
become  a  physician.  Dear  Sir:"  it  reads,  "The  case  you 
cite,  when  robbed  of  all  its  sensational  surroundings,  is  as 
follows:  The  child  was  a  spoiled  youngster  who  would  have 
his  own  way ;  and  when  he  had  a  green  stick  fracture  of  the 
forearm,  and,  after  having  had  it  bandaged  for  several  days, 
concluded  he  would  much  prefer  to  go  without  a  splint, 
to  please  the  spoiled  child  the  splint  was  removed,  and  the 
arm  carefully  adjusted  in  a  sling.  As  a  matter  of  course, 
the  bone  soon  united,  as  is  customary  in  children,  and  being 
only  partially  broken,  of  course  all  the  sooner.  This  is  the 
miracle.  Some  nurse  or  crank  or  religious  enthusiast,  ig- 
norant of  matters  physiological  and  histological,  evidently 
started  the  story,  and  unfortunately  my  name — for  I  am 
the  party — is  being  circulated  in  circles  of  faith-curites, 
and  is  given  the  sort  of  notoriety  I  do  not  crave.  .  .  . 


INCURABLE   CASES  191 

Very  respectfully  yours,  Carl  H.  Reed." 54  Conscious 
fraud  here  is  not  to  be  thought  of  for  a  moment.  But  all 
the  more  powerfully  the  lesson  is  driven  home  to  us  that 
in  matters  of  this  kind  testimony  to  details  requires  the 
closest  scrutiny.  There  is  scarcely  an  item  in  this  case 
which  is  correctly  reported  in  the  current  story. 

It  seems  to  be  the  experience  of  every  one  who  has 
made  a  serious  attempt  to  sift  the  evidence  for  miraculous 
healing  that  this  evidence  melts  away  before  his  eyes. 
Many  remarkable  cures  are  wrought,  but  nothing  which 
compels  the  inference  of  miraculous  healing  seems  to  be 
unambiguously  established.  What  emerges  as  final  re- 
sult is  that  a  sharp  line  is  drawn  between  the  class  of  cures 
which  can  be  obtained  and  the  class  of  cures  which  cannot 
be  obtained  by  faith,  and  that  this  line  is  drawn  approxi- 
mately at  the  exact  spot  where  the  line  runs  which  sepa- 
rates cures  which  can  from  those  which  cannot  be  ob- 
tained by  mind-cure,  mesmerism,  Perkins's  tractors,  and 
other  similar  practices.  There  are  classes  of  sickness  which 
Faith-Healing  can  cure,  and  there  are  classes  of  sickness 
which  it  cannot  cure.  In  particular,  for  example,  it  is 
powerless  to  heal  broken  bones,  to  renew  mutilations,  to 
do  so  little  a  thing  as  to  restore  lost  teeth.  Doctor  Charles 
Cullis  is  reported  as  saying:  "In  no  case  in  God's  word  is 
there  a  promise  that  we  may  pray  over  a  broken  bone  and 
anoint  the  sufferers  with  oil ;  only  the  sick.  A  broken  bone 
is  not  sickness,  and  should  be  put  in  the  hands  of  a  sur- 
geon." And  "he  has  repeatedly  and  publicly,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  thousands  at  Old  Orchard  Beach  and  elsewhere, 
disclaimed  all  attempts  by  the  prayer  of  faith  to  secure 
from  God  the  restoration  of  an  amputated  hand  or  the 
setting  of  a  broken  limb."  55  This  is,  of  course,  only  a 
confession  that  there  is  no  question  of  miraculous  action 
in  Faith-Healing.  What  is  the  use  of  invoking  miracle  to 
do  work  equally  well  done  without  miracle,  and  repudiating 
all  effects  for  which  miracles  are  required?    If  a  man  as- 


192  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

serts  that  he  controls  the  motion  of  the  sun  by  miraculous 
power,  I  want  some  better  proof  that  he  does  so  than  his 
pointing  to  the  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun  every  day  at 
its  appointed  time.  And  I  want  no  better  proof  that  he 
works  no  miracle  in  the  case,  than  that  the  sun  under  his 
incantations  moves  no  otherwise  than  it  moves  without 
them. 

After  the  statement  of  the  evidence  from  facts  Gordon 
has  nothing  further  to  do  but  to  draw  his  conclusion. 
This  he  does  in  a  chapter  called  "The  Verdict  of  Candor," 
while  he  gives  a  warning  to  his  brethren  not  to  press  be- 
yond limits  in  another  chapter  entitled  "The  Verdict  of 
Caution."  In  both  of  these  chapters  some  very  good 
things  are  said,  and  some  which  are  rather  odd.  Of  the 
latter  class  is  the  designation  of  health  "as  the  first-fruits 
of  redemption,"  56  whereas  the  Apostle  speaks  of  the  re- 
demption of  the  body  as  the  last  thing  to  be  looked  for; 
and  the  suggestion  that  the  reason  for  the  fewness  of  in- 
stances of  Faith-Healing  is  due  to  the  difficulty  of  "an 
individual  prayer  making  headway  against  the  adverse 
sentiment  of  the  great  body  of  Christians"  57 — which  sounds 
more  like  Mrs.  Eddy  than  a  Christian  minister.  It  does 
not  seem  necessary,  however,  to  dwell  on  these  things. 
We  take  leave  of  the  book  with  a  profound  conviction  that 
its  argument  is  inconsequent,  and  its  contention  unfounded 
either  in  Scripture  or  in  fact. 

And  now  let  us  very  briefly  sum  up  from  our  own  point 
of  view  what  it  seems  that  we  ought  to  think  of  Faith- 
Healing.  First  of  all,  as  regards  the  status  qucestionis,  let 
it  be  remembered  that  the  question  is  not:  (i)  Whether 
God  is  an  answerer  of  prayer;  nor  (2)  whether,  in  answer 
to  prayer,  He  heals  the  sick ;  nor  (3)  whether  His  action  in 
healing  the  sick  is  a  supernatural  act;  nor  (4)  whether  the 
supernaturalness  of  the  act  may  be  so  apparent  as  to  dem- 
onstrate God's  activity  in  it  to  all  right-thinking  minds 
conversant  with  the  facts.     All  this  we  all  believe.     The 


STATE  OF  THE  QUESTION  193 

question  at  issue  is  distinctly  whether  God  has  pledged 
Himself  to  heal  the  sick  miraculously,  and  does  heal  them 
miraculously,  on  the  call  of  His  children — that  is  to  say 
without  means — any  means — and  apart  from  means,  and 
above  means;  and  this  so  ordinarily  that  Christian  people 
may  be  encouraged,  if  not  required,  to  discard  all  means 
as  either  unnecessary  or  even  a  mark  of  lack  of  faith  and 
sinful  distrust,  and  to  depend  on  God  alone  for  the  healing 
of  all  their  sicknesses.  This  is  the  issue,  even  conservatively 
stated.  For  many  will  say  that  faith  gives  us  as  clear  a 
title  to  the  healing  of  our  bodies  as  to  the  salvation  of  our 
souls;  and  this  is  often  interpreted  to  mean  that  it  is  the 
heritage  of  every  Christian,  if  a  true  Christian,  to  be  free 
from  all  disease  and  bodily  weakness,  and  it  is  a  proof  of 
special  sin  in  a  Christian  if  he  is  a  special  sufferer  from 
disease. 

With  reference  to  this  question  it  is  to  be  said  at  least: 
(i)  No  promise  of  such  miraculous  action  on  God's  part 
exists  in  Scripture.  (2)  No  facts  have  been  adduced  which 
will  compel  the  assumption  that  such  miraculous  healing 
takes  place.  (3)  Such  a  miraculous  method  of  action  on 
God's  part  would  be  wholly  unnecessary  for  the  produc- 
tion of  the  effect  desired;  God  can  heal  the  bodily  hurt 
of  His  people  without  miracle.  (4)  The  employment  of 
such  a  method  of  working  would  be  contrary  to  the  analogy 
of  God's  mode  of  working  in  other  spheres  of  His  activity. 
(5)  It  would  be  contrary  to  the  very  purpose  of  miracle, 
which  would  be  defeated  by  it.  If  miracles  are  to  be  com- 
mon, every-day  occurrences,  normal  and  not  extraordinary, 
they  cease  to  attract  attention,  and  lose  their  very  reason 
of  existence.  What  is  normal  is  according  to  law.  If 
miracles  are  the  law  of  the  Christian  life  they  cease  to 
serve  their  chief  end.  (6)  The  contention  of  the  Faith- 
Healers  overlooks  numerous  important  biblical  facts.  Pri- 
marily the  fact  that  the  miraculous  gifts  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment were  the  credentials  of  the  Apostle,  and  were  confined 


194  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

to  those  to  whom  the  Apostles  had  conveyed  them — whence 
a  presumption  arises  against  their  continuance  after  the 
Apostolic  age.  Then,  again,  that  there  are  instances  of 
sickness  in  the  New  Testament  which  were  not  removed  by 
the  prayer  of  faith.  There  is,  for  example,  Paul's  leaving 
of  Trophimus  at  Miletum  sick,  and  his  recommending  to 
Timothy,  when  sick,  not  the  seeking  of  healing  by  the  mi- 
raculous act  of  God,  but  the  use  of  medicinal  means — the 
drinking  no  longer  of  water  but  of  a  little  wine  for  his 
stomach's  sake  and  his  often  infirmities.  It  seems  quite 
clear  that  Paul  did  not  share  the  views  of  our  modern 
Faith-Healers.  (7)  The  Faith-Healing  arguments  presup- 
pose or  lead  to  many  false  doctrines.  A  desultory  allusion 
to  some  of  them  here  may  not  be  without  its  uses.  (A) 
Sickness  and  sin  are  often  connected  in  an  utterly  unscrip- 
tural  manner.  That  all  the  sicknesses  which  afflict  our 
race  are  a  result  of  sin  is  true.  But  that  special  sicknesses 
infer  special  sin  our  Saviour  Himself  explicitly  denies. 
(B)  These  arguments  would  be  equally  valid  to  commend 
perfectionism.  If  sinfulness  is  not  to  be  removed  in  this 
life,  neither  is  sickness.  Both  are  the  fruits  of  guilt,  and 
both  are  removed  on  the  basis  of  the  work  of  the  guilt- 
bearer;  and  both  are  removed  only  when  the  subjective 
salvation  is  completed.  (C)  They  are  founded  on  a  com- 
pletely unscriptural  view  of  the  functions  of  suffering,  and 
the  uses  of  sickness  and  pain.  All  sickness  and  suffering 
are  spoken  of  as  if  they  were  from  the  evil  one  alone;  as 
if  they  were  sheerly  the  mark  of  the  displeasure  of  God; 
and  as  if  they  were  a  fruit  of  particular  sin.  Scripture 
says:  "Behold  whom  the  Lord  loveth  He  chasteneth,  and 
scourgeth  every  son  whom  He  receiveth."  Sickness  is 
often  the  proof  of  special  favor  from  God ;  it  always  comes 
to  His  children  from  His  Fatherly  hand,  and  always  in 
His  loving  pleasure  works,  together  with  all  other  things 
which  befall  God's  children,  for  good.  (8)  The  Faith- 
Healing  contention  leads  to  contempt  for  God's  appointed 


FAITH  PRACTITIONERS  195 

means,  and  this  leads  to  the  fanatical  attitude  of  demand- 
ing from  God  apart  from  all  means  that  for  the  attaining 
of  which  He  has  ordained  appropriate  means.  We  are  not 
to  refuse  to  cultivate  the  soil  and  then  demand  to  be  fed 
by  miracle.  (9)  The  Faith-Healing  practice  leads  to  the 
production  of  "professionals,"  standing  between  the  soul 
and  God.  There  is  grave  danger  in  a  soul  permitting  an 
unauthorized  intermediary  to  take  up  a  position  between 
it  and  the  gracious  activities  of  God  toward  it.  From 
this  germ  the  whole  sacerdotal  evil  has  grown.  And,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  the  practitioner  himself  there  comes 
inevitable  temptation  to  spiritual  pride  and  autocracy, 
which  is  most  disastrous  to  his  spiritual  life;  and  some- 
times even  something  worse. 

One  of  the  phenomena  of  the  Faith-Healing  delusion  has 
been  the  production  of  a  series  of  these  practitioners, 
whose  activities  have  not  always  been  wholesome.  From 
time  to  time  an  individual  healer  has  risen  to  public  notice 
and  attracted  the  attention  of  the  whole  religious  commu- 
nity, for  a  time  at  least  attaining  tremendous  vogue  and 
commanding  great  applause.  There  was,  for  example,  to 
confine  ourselves  to  recent  times,  Prince  Alexander  of 
Hohenlohe,  who  during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  created  a  great  stir  with  his  miraculous  healings 
in  Austria  and  Germany.58  A  lesser  light  burned  contem- 
poraneously in  Ireland  in  the  person  of  Father  Matthew.59 
One  of  the  most  admirable  of  these  figures  was  Johann 
Christoph  Blumhardt  who,  says  William  James,  quite  spon- 
taneously developed  in  the  early  forties  of  the  last  century 
"an  extremely  pure  faculty  of  healing,"  which  he  exerted 
during  nearly  thirty  years.60  Perhaps  Doctor  A.  B.  Simp- 
son of  New  York,  who  has  been  since  1887  the  president  of 
the  Christian  and  Missionary  Alliance,  founded  in  that 
year  at  Old  Orchard,  Maine,  has  been  blamelessly  in  the 
public  eye  as  a  healer  of  the  sick  through  faith  for  as  long 
a  period  as  any  of  our  recent  American  healers.61    The 


196  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

fame  of  others  has  been,  if  more  splendid,  at  the  same  time 
less  pure  and  less  lasting.  The  name  of  a  certain  A. 
Schrader,  for  example,  was  in  everybody's  mouth  twenty 
years  ago.  Then  there  was  the  romantic  figure  of  Franz 
Schlatter,  with  his  meteoric  career  in  Denver  and  elsewhere 
in  the  West,  as  Messiah  and  divine  healer.62  But  perhaps 
the  most  striking  of  all  these  personages  was  John  Alex- 
ander Dowie,63  whose  work  in  Chicago  as  general  overseer 
of  the  Christian  Apostolic  Catholic  Church  in  Zion — the 
product  of  his  activities — attained  gigantic  proportions. 
A  Scotchman  by  birth,  an  Australian  Congregationalist  in 
previous  ministerial  affiliation,  he  created,  rather  than 
built  up,  in  Chicago  a  great  religious  community,  over 
which  he  ruled  with  despotic  power,  and  in  the  "divine 
healing  rooms"  of  which  he  wrought  many  a  cure.  No 
doubt,  the  proportion  of  successful  cures  wrought  by  him 
was  not  larger  than  in  the  case  of  others.  If  a  note  in  one  of 
the  issues  of  his  newspaper — Leaves  of  Healing — may  be 
taken  as  a  criterion,  the  work  of  healing  in  his  hands  can 
scarcely  be  pronounced  successful.  "I  pray  and  lay  my 
hands,"  he  says,  "on  seventy  thousand  people  in  a  year." 
That  would  give  a  hundred  and  seventy-five  thousand  in 
two  years  and  a  half.  Yet  in  the  two  years  and  a  half  im- 
mediately preceding  the  date  of  this  statement  he  reports 
only  seven  hundred  cures.64  One  success  in  every  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  trials  does  not  impress  one  as  a  very  suc- 
cessful ministry  of  healing  to  the  sick  and  sorrowing  world56. 


MIND-CURE 


MIND-CURE 

When  we  speak  of  "faith-healing"  we  use  ambiguous 
language  so  far  as  we  leave  it  undetermined  whether  we 
understand  the  healing  in  question  to  be  effected  immedi- 
ately by  the  action  of  the  faith  itself,  or  by  the  God  to 
whom  it  is  committed  in  faith.1  In  the  latter  case  the 
healing  is,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word,  a  supernatural 
one.  In  the  former  it  is  a  natural  healing,  as  natural  as 
if  it  were  wrought  by  a  surgical  operation  or  by  a  drug. 
This  is,  of  course,  not  to  say  that  God  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  healing  in  this  case;  or,  indeed,  has  not  Himself 
wrought  it.  God  has  very  much  to  do  with  the  cures 
wrought  by  the  surgeon's  knife  or  the  physician's  medica- 
ments; so  much  to  do  with  them  that  it  is  He  who  really 
makes  them.  It  is  to  Him  that  the  efficacy  of  all  means 
is  due,  in  general  and  in  particular.  It  is  a  wise  man  of 
very  old  time  who  in  one  breath  bids  us  look  to  the  physi- 
cian with  his  remedies  and  to  the  Lord  who  is  behind  the 
physician  and  works  in  and  through  him  and  his  remedies. 
"Honor  a  physician  for  the  honor  due  unto  him,  for  the 
uses  which  ye  may  have  of  him.  .  .  .  For  of  the  Most 
High  cometh  healing.  .  .  .  My  Son,  in  thy  sickness  be 
not  negligent;  but  pray  unto  the  Lord  and  He  will  make 
thee  whole.  .  .  .  Then  give  place  to  the  physician,  for 
the  Lord  hath  created  him ;  let  him  not  go  from  thee,  for 
thou  hast  need  of  him."  2  When  we  think  of  cures  wrought 
by  means,  we  do  not  exclude  God  from  them.  But  just 
because  they  are  wrought  by  means,  we  do  not  ascribe 
them  to  God  as  their  proximate  cause.  The  point  is  that 
a  cure  wrought  proximately  by  faith,  or  by  any  other 
mental  act,  or  attitude,  or  state,  is  just  as  truly  wrought 
by  means  as  if  it  were  wrought  by  a  drug  or  a  knife.    And 

199 


200  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

it  is  just  as  truly  wrought  by  natural  means.  Our  minds 
are  ours,  and  all  their  acts  and  states  are  our  acts  and 
states;  and  all  that  is  produced  by  them  in  any  of  their 
acts  or  states  are  effects  of  our  own.  Any  cure  supposed 
to  be  produced  by  faith  itself  is  accordingly  a  natural 
cure,  and  that  just  as  truly  as  any  other  natural  cure 
whatever. 

It  might  conduce  to  clearness  if  writers  would  agree  to 
classify  all  such  cures,  the  natural  products  of  faith  itself, 
under  some  such  caption  as  mind-cures — or,  if  we  prefer  a 
big  name,  under  the  general  designation  of  psychotherapy 
— reserving  the  term  "  faith-healing  "  for  those  cures  which 
are  ascribed  not  to  faith  itself,  but  to  the  immediate  action 
of  God  sought  in  faith.  Meanwhile  this  is  not  the  universal 
usage.  The  nomenclature  is  far  from  fixed.  Very  fre- 
quently the  term  " faith-cure"  is  employed  to  express 
specifically  cures  wrought  directly  by  faith  itself.  As 
often,  it  is  used  in  a  sense  wide  enough  to  embrace  both 
of  these  very  diverse  species  of  cures.  Naturally,  this  pro- 
duces confusion.  The  confusion  shows  itself,  for  example, 
in  the  definition  given  to  ''Faith-Healing"  at  the  head  of 
the  article  printed  under  this  title  in  Hastings's  Encyclopedia 
of  Religion  and  Ethics.  There  at  least  emerges  from  this 
definition,  however,  an  express  recognition  of  a  double 
sense  of  the  term  "  faith-cure,"  a  strict  and  a  wide  sense. 
Taking  so  much  as  gain,  we  shall,  contrary,  no  doubt,  to 
this  author's  own  meaning,  discriminate  these  two  senses 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  assign  to  the  strict  sense  of  the  term 
those  cures  which  are  supposed  to  be  immediately  wrought 
by  God  on  faith,  and  to  the  broader  sense  those  which  are 
supposed  to  be  wrought  more  or  less  wholly  by  faith  itself. 

Having  the  latter  of  these  varieties  in  mind,  we  find 
ourselves  more  in  accord  with  our  author  when  he  remarks 
that  "faith-healing  is  the  oldest  form  of  healing  in  the 
world,"  antedating,  or  at  least  growing  up  side  by  side 
with,  "medical  practice  in  its  earliest  and  crudest  form,  and 


FAITH-HEALING  IN   WIDER   SENSE  201 

as  its  predominant  partner."  3  We  cannot,  indeed,  ascribe 
with  him  the  miracles  of  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles  to  this 
category.4  But,  apart  from  the  miraculous  attestation  of 
the  special  revelation  of  God  which  has  been  recorded  for 
us  in  the  inspired  Scriptures,  we  recognize  with  him  a  con- 
tinuous stream  of  faith-healings  in  this  sense,  extending 
from  the  earliest  ages  quite  down  to  our  own  day.  The 
numerous  "Healing- Gods"  of  classical  antiquity,  such 
practices  as  "temple-sleeping,"  and  the  endless  narratives 
of  cures  sought  and  found  through  it  and  other  means,  at- 
test its  prevalence  in  pre-Christian  times ;  the  Patristic  and 
Mediaeval  Ages  overflow  with  instances;  the  Reformation 
was  far  from  bringing  its  practice  to  an  end,  and — if  we 
may  now  enlarge  the  category  to  that  of  mind-healing  in 
general — the  history  of  such  movements  as  those  still 
going  on  among  us  under  the  names  of  Animal  Magnetism, 
Mesmerism,  Spiritualism,  Mental  Healing,  New  Thought, 
Christian  Science,  evince  the  place  its  conscious  practice 
still  takes  in  the  life  of  the  people  of  to-day. 

In  a  former  lecture  we  have  sought  to  give  some  account 
of  the  assertions  which  are  still  made  that  faith-healings, 
in  the  strict  sense  of  healings  made  directly  by  God,  con- 
tinue to  occur  among  us.  For  the  sake  of  completeness  it 
may  not  be  improper  to  proceed  now  to  some  account  of 
at  least  the  more  prominent  varieties  of  faith-healing  in 
the  wider  sense — or,  in  a  less  confusing  nomenclature,  of 
mind-cure— prevalent  in  our  day.  No  doubt,  in  doing  so, 
we  overstep  the  limits  of  our  formal  subject.  Faith-healing 
in  this  sense — that  is  to  say,  mind-cure — by  virtue  of  the 
very  fact  that  some  mental  act  or  state  is  held  to  be  the 
producing  cause  at  work,  can  make  no  pretense  to  mirac- 
ulousness,  and  in  point  of  fact,  in  the  forms  at  least  in  which 
it  is  most  commonly  practised,  it  makes  no  pretense  to 
miraculousness.  Nevertheless,  its  relation  to  faith-healing 
in  the  stricter  sense  is  so  close,  confusion  with  it  is  so  com- 
mon, and  the  lessons  to  be  learned  from  it  as  to  the  real 


202  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

nature  of  the  alleged  instances  of  faith-healing  in  the  strict 
sense  occurring  among  us  are  so  instructive,  that  we  should 
not  be  justified  in  passing  it  by  altogether. 

The  variety  of  forms  in  which  mind-healing  is  practised 
to-day  is  very  great.  They  differ  from  one  another  less 
in  the  results  obtained,  or  even  in  the  means  employed  to 
obtain  these  results,  than  in  the  theoretical  basis  by  which 
they  severally  attempt  to  explain  their  production.  Wil- 
liam F.  Cobb,  the  writer  of  the  article  on  "Faith-Healing" 
in  Hastings's  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics,  to  which 
we  have  already  alluded,  enumerates  its  principal  species 
as  Mental-healing,  Magnetic-healing,  Spiritualistic-healing, 
and  Spiritual-healing,  that  is  to  say,  if  we  may  employ  the 
popular  designations  of  typical  forms  of  each  to  symbolize 
the  several  varieties,  Christian  Science,  Mesmerism,  Spiri- 
tualism, and  Faith-Healing.  This  enumeration  is  by  no 
means  exhaustive,  but  it  will  serve  our  present  purpose. 
The  point  of  importance  for  us  is  that  in  the  action  of  all 
these  varieties  alike,  as  Cobb  justly  remarks,  a  leading  part 
is  taken  by  suggestion.  This  suggestion,  when  given  its 
most  scientifically  developed  form,  is  called  hypnotism. 
But,  under  whatever  name,  and  employed  under  the  gui- 
dance of  whatever  underlying  theory  of  the  nature  of  being, 
or  of  the  process  of  the  cure  established,  it  operates  after 
essentially  the  same  fashion.5 

It  is  only  with  those  forms  of  mind-cure  which  have  in 
one  way  or  another  closely  connected  themselves  with  re- 
ligion that  we  are  for  the  moment  particularly  concerned. 
One  of  these  forms,  very  prominent  in  the  public  eye  at 
present,  is  that  which  is  known  as  the  Emmanuel  Move- 
ment. Nothing  could  be  further  from  the  thought  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Emmanuel  Movement  than  a  pretension  to 
miraculous  powers.6  It  only  professes  to  deal,  prosaically 
enough,  and  with  an  almost  ostentatious  disassociation  of 
itself  from  the  supernatural,  with  certain  classes  of  func- 
tional or  nervous  diseases — by  means  of  suggestion,  of 


THE   EMMANUEL  MOVEMENT  203 

course,  but  also  by  any  other  forms  of  mental  and  spiritual 
influence  which  experience  may  commend  as  useful.  It 
does  not  bother  itself  overmuch  with  underlying  theory, 
although  it  proceeds  actually  on  the  theory — which  it  pre- 
fers to  look  upon  as  observed  fact — of  a  subconscious  life, 
the  storehouse  of  energy  capable  of  being  tapped  and 
drawn  upon  for  the  purposes  of  our  daily  living.7  The 
common  experience  of  the  whole  Christian  past,  it  thinks, 
supplies  it  with  a  general  support  for  its  practice  as  an  ac- 
tivity of  the  organized  church.  It  quotes  with  particular 
satisfaction  an  entry  in  John  Wesley's  Journal  for  May  12, 
1759.8  Here  Wesley  remarks  on  the  helplessness  of  the 
physicians  in  the  presence  of  a  woman  kept  ill  from  fretting 
over  the  death  of  her  son.  "Why,"  Wesley  asks,  "don't 
physicians  consider  how  far  bodily  disorders  are  caused  or 
influenced  by  the  mind,  and  in  those  cases  which  are  ut- 
terly out  of  their  sphere,  call  in  the  assistance  of  a  minister, 
as  ministers,  when  they  find  the  mind  disordered  by  the 
body,  call  in  the  assistance  of  a  physician?"  In  the  in- 
timate co-operation  of  the  physician  and  the  minister  here 
desiderated,  it  is  suggested,  we  have  the  whole  principle 
of  the  Emmanuel  Movement.9  As  the  physician  must  be 
called  in  to  remove  the  bodily  disorders  which  inhibit  right 
spiritual  functioning,  so  the  church  may  well  step  in  to 
aid  in  correcting  those  bodily  evils  which  are  ultimately 
the  result  of  spiritual  disorders. 

We  confess  to  being  chilled  when  we  hear  of  such  things 
as  "religious  faith  and  prayer"  being  looked  upon  as  thera- 
peutical agents  for  the  cure  of  disease,  and  administered  to 
patients  as  such.  We  are  frankly  shocked  at  the  coupling 
together  of  faith  and  paregoric,  prayer  and  podophyllin  in 
a  single  comprehensive  pharmacopoeia.  We  are  too  accus- 
tomed to  thinking  of  faith  and  prayer  as  terminating  on 
God,  and  finding  their  response  in  His  gracious  activities, 
to  feel  comfortable  when  they  are  turned  back  on  them- 
selves and — while  still,  no  doubt,  addressed  to  God — used 


204  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

as  instruments  for  moving  man.10  It  is  unfortunate,  more- 
over, that  the  form  of  Christianity  which  is  professed  by 
the  leaders  of  the  Emmanuel  Movement,  and  the  inculca- 
tion of  which  they  rely  upon  to  soothe  troubled  minds  and 
to  inspire  to  effort,  is  rather  that  taught  by  Renan  and 
Harnack  and  Theodor  Keim  (the  collocation  of  names  is 
not  our  own11),  than  that  taught  by  John  and  Paul  and 
Jesus;  so  that  a  rationalistic  veil  hangs  over  all  their  re- 
ligious prescriptions.  Nevertheless,  although  Christianity 
is  emphatically  an  "  other- world "  religion,  and  a  merely 
"this-world"  religion  is  just  no  Christianity  at  all,  it  is 
not  to  be  denied  that  there  is  a  "this-world"  side  to  Chris- 
tianity. Undoubtedly,  it  has  the  promise  of  the  life  that 
now  is  as  well  as  of  that  which  is  to  come,  and  they  who 
seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness  may 
rightly  expect  all  these  things  to  be  added  unto  them.  It 
is  as  little  to  be  doubted  that  there  are  valuable  reflex  effects 
which  may  be  confidently  counted  upon  from  the  exercise, 
say,  of  faith  and  prayer,  as  it  is  undeniable  that  these  re- 
flex effects  are  of  infinitely  less  importance  than  their  direct 
working.  And  of  course  it  is  unquestionable  that  it  be- 
longs to  the  Christian  calling  to  relieve  so  far  as  it  is  within 
our  power  to  do  so,  by  the  use  of  all  legitimate  means, 
every  distress  under  which  we  find  our  fellow  men  to  be 
suffering.  We  would  not  lag  behind  the  Emmanuel  Move- 
ment in  zeal  for  service ;  and  if  we  find  it  moved  at  this  or 
that  point  by  extravagances  of  pretension,  and  limited 
here  and  there  by  defective  spiritual  insight  or  outlook, 
surely,  in  avoiding  what  is  bad  in  it,  we  may  not  refuse  to 
imitate  what  is  good,  and  our  chief  concern  should  be  to 
fashion  our  own  conduct  more,  not  less,  completely  after 
the  higher  Christian  ideal. 

The  particular  psychological  assumptions  upon  which 
the  Emmanuel  Movement  is  at  present  conducted  may 
seem  to  us  little  assured.  No  doubt,  we  are  told  that  the 
work  "does  not  depend  upon  any  theory,  whether  psycho- 


DIFFERENTIATION   OF   FUNCTION  205 

logical  or  physiological,  of  the  subconscious."  12  We  are 
simply  to  act  on  the  empirical  fact  that  even  broken  men 
are  accessible  to  spiritual  influences,  and  through  these 
spiritual  influences  may  be  brought  to  a  better  adjustment 
with  life.  To  that  extent  we  may  all  be  believers  in  psycho- 
therapy. What  Christian  pastor,  what  Christian  person, 
has  not  acted  on  that  assumption  since  Christianity  began  ? 
But  there  is  the  organization?  Well,  what  has  the  Em- 
manuel Movement  to  offer  here  which  was  not  offered  in 
the  old  Faith-Houses — say,  Zeller's  House  in  Mannedorf— 
except  a  very  much  thinner  religion  and  a  more  advanced 
medical  science?  There  remains  the  question  of  method. 
We  ourselves  prefer  the  older  method  of,  say,  the  establish- 
ment of  hospitals  like  the  Presbyterian  Hospitals  in  New 
York  and  Philadelphia,  in  which  Christian  charity  provides 
the  best  medical  service  for  human  ills.  We  feel  grave 
doubts  as  to  the  desirability  of  the  minister  himself  becom- 
ing officially  a  medical  practitioner,  even  by  the  method  of 
suggestion;  perhaps  we  would  better  say  especially  by  the 
method  of  suggestion — even  though  that  be  spiritual  sug- 
gestion. When  Sir  Clifford  Allbutt  declares  that  "notions 
of  the  priest  as  medicine-man"  are  "essentially  pagan,"  he 
speaks  no  doubt  unnecessarily  harshly,  but,  we  must  admit 
it,  essentially  justly.  When  Doctor  Charles  Buttar  ad- 
vises the  clergymen  to  be  "content  for  the  present  to  leave 
the  untrained  practice  of  methods  of  suggestion  to  quacks," 
we  cannot  deny  that  he  has  had  some  provocation  for 
his  counsel.  When  Stephen  Paget  in  his  gracious  way  re- 
marks that  "they  who  desire,  extravagantly,  to  put  'spiri- 
tual healing'  among  the  methods  of  the  Christian  minis- 
try, seem  to  me  to  be  losing  sight  of  the  fact  that  common 
sense  is  an  essential  trait  of  the  Christian  life,"  we  cannot 
help  feeling  that  he  has  said  the  right  word  in  the  right 
place.13  Is  it  not  plain  common  sense  for  each  organ  of  the 
body  to  be  content  with  its  own  functions,  the  eye  with  its 
seeing,  the  ear  with  its  hearing?    And  is  there  not  a  pro- 


206  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

found  warning  in  Paul's  remark,  especially  to  us  who  have 
a  work  of  our  own  to  do,  that  all  cannot  be  the  ear — else 
where  were  the  seeing?14 

The  leaders  of  the  Emmanuel  Movement  are  theists. 
Therefore,  instead  of  saying  of  an  act  of  healing,  "The 
forces  of  nature  do  it,"  they  prefer  to  say,  "  God  does  it  in 
and  through  the  forces  of  nature."  In  accordance  with 
their  theistic  presuppositions  this  is  the  proper  account  to 
give  of  any  natural  act  of  healing.  No  "  miraculous 
agency"  is  supposed;  "the  forces  of  nature"  do  the  work. 
But  there  is  a  God,  and  this  God  works  in  and  through  the 
forces  of  nature,  and  thus  in  the  end  it  is  God  that  does  it. 
God  does  it,  that  is,  in  the  same  sense  and  after  the  same 
fashion  that  it  is  God  that  does  everything  that  is  done 
throughout  this  whole  great  universe.  W.  F.  Cobb,  to 
whom  we  have  already  alluded  more  than  once,  is  not 
purely  a  theist ;  he  is  a  mystic.  In  describing  the  varieties 
of  what  he  calls  broadly  faith-healing,  therefore,  he  natu- 
rally reserves  the  culminating  place  for  a  variety  which 
posits  behind  the  act  of  healing,  as  its  explanation,  a  mys- 
tical theory.  It  is  not  quite  clear  whether  he  would  give 
his  personal  adhesion  to  all  the  details  of  this  "spiritual 
healing,"  as  he  calls  it.15  It  is  clear,  however,  that  his 
sympathies  go  very  largely  with  it,  and  that  he  looks  upon  it 
as,  in  the  main  at  least,  the  true  rationale  of  faith-healing. 
Its  main  postulate  is  that  all  physical  disease,  without  ex- 
ception, is  the  result,  directly  or  indirectly,  of  psychical 
disorder,  and  is  to  be  struck  at,  therefore,  not  in  the  body, 
where  only  symptoms  manifest  themselves,  but  in  the  soul, 
where  alone  lie  the  causes.  What  is  sought  is  to  procure 
for  the  soul  of  the  sufferer  an  influx  of  spiritual  lif e ;  and  this 
life  can  be  found,  of  course,  only  in  God.  "The  power 
which  alone  can  heal  the  soul,"  we  are  told,  "is  God." 
God,  now,  is  reached  by  "faith" — the  faith,  it  is  to  be 
observed,  however,  not  of  the  sufferer,  but  of  the  practi- 
tioner, for  in  this  form  of  theory  a  healer  is  necessary. 


MYSTICISM  AND   PANTHEISM  207 

"This  faith  is  defined  as  a  quality  in  the  spirit  of  the 
healer,  .  .  .  which  enables  him  to  render  quiescent  his 
'mortal  mind,'  and  so  to  place  his  spirit  in  a  positive  state 
of  calm,  poised  and  at  peace,  and  a  channel  for  the  Divine 
Spirit  to  pass  through  to  the  sufferer."  The  state  of 
openness  and  serenity  thus  described  as  faith,  we  are  further 
told,  is  simply  the  normal  condition  for  prayer.  We  may 
express  the  process,  therefore,  by  saying  that  spiritual 
healing  is  the  product  of  the  power  of  God  directed  by 
faith  through  prayer  to  the  soul  that  needs  healing.  Hence, 
it  is  said  that  it  is  God,  and  God  alone,  who  performs  the 
act  of  healing,  and  that  all  healing  is  obtained  by  the  in- 
flux of  spiritual  life  into  the  soul  from  God;  although  the 
door  of  ingress  into  the  soul  is  opened  for  it  by  a  practi- 
tioner, the  soul  itself  being  in  a  state  of  passive,  not  active, 
faith  in  the  process.  The  healing  is  conceived  thus  as  in 
a  true  sense  supernatural:  an  influx  into  the  soul  from 
without.  Accordingly,  it  is  asserted,  there  can  be  no  real 
failure  in  it.  An  influx  of  spiritual  life  from  God,  the  source 
of  all  life,  must  bring  benefit.  If  this  benefit  does  not  show 
itself  on  the  physical  plane,  it  is  nevertheless  there — the 
soul  at  least  has  the  benefit. 

From  a  mysticism  like  this  it  is  but  a  single  step  to 
open  pantheism,  and  that  step  is  taken  by  the  form  of 
mind-cure  which  is  most  in  vogue  among  us:16  that  which 
calls  itself  for  some  inexplicable  reason  by  the  name  of 
Christian  Science.17  There  is  a  sense,  of  course,  in  which — 
just  because  the  fundamental  elements  of  her  thought  are 
pantheistic— Mrs.  Eddy  will  not  allow  that  her  Christian 
Science  is  mind-cure.  It  is  not  "mind-cure"  with  a  small 
"m,"  she  affirms,  but  "Mind-cure,"  with  a  capital  "M."18 
But  just  because  her  fundamental  thought  is  pantheistic, 
this  is  merely  a  verbal  distinction.  She  is  intensely  em- 
phatic that  her  Mind-cures  are  "not  supernatural  but  su- 
premely natural."  19  In  its  practice  Christian  Science  does . 
not  differ  greatly  from  other  forms  of  mind-cure.    Per- 


208  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

ceiving,  or  at  least  acknowledging,  less  readily  than  the 
Emmanuel  Movement  the  limitations  of  mind-cure,  it 
accepts,  like  the  spiritual  healing  of  which  we  have  just 
been  speaking,  all  kinds  of  cases — although  the  range  of 
its  actual  cures,  as  Elwood  Worcester  dryly  remarks,  is 
not  enlarged  thereby.20  Its  real  differentiation  from  its 
.  sister  systems  lies  wholly  in  the  pseudo-philosophical  back- 
ground which  it  has  washed  in  with  a  broad  brush  behind 
its  activities.  This  certainly  is  portentous  enough,  but  it 
serves  only  for  ornament,  and  has  no  effect  on  the  prac- 
tice of  the  mind-cure,  which  is  the  real  source  of  the  move- 
ment's vogue.  It  is  incumbent  on  us  before  we  close  this 
series  of  lectures  to  give  some  account  of  this  system  of 
mind-healing,  which  has  become  a  religion,  and  has  in  the 
course  of  a  very  few  years  overspread  the  earth. 

The  late  Doctor  St.  John  Roosa  once  described  mind- 
cure  as  faith-cure  run  to  seed.21  The  characterization  is 
true  as  a  general  proposition  in  the  history  of  thought. 
Man  is  a  religious  animal,  and  the  religious  explanation  of 
phenomena  antedates,  in  this  department  of  thought  also, 
the  naturalistic.  It  is  also,  in  the  longer  historical  se- 
quences, true  of  the  ultimate  origin  of  the  particular  species 
of  mind-cure  which  Doctor  Roosa  had  in  mind,  that  is  to 
say,  Christian  Science.  For  Mesmer  derives  from  Gassner, 
and  Christian  Science  is  unquestionably  a  granddaughter 
— however  ungrateful  a  granddaughter — of  Mesmerism.22 
But  there  is  no  immediate  affiliation  of  Christian  Science 
with  faith-cure,  and  certainly  the  adherents  of  Christian 
Science  do  not  look  upon  themselves  as  its  deteriorated 
descendants.  They  rather  set  themselves  in  irreducible 
antagonism  to  it.23  Not  indeed  that  they  deny  that  effects 
are  produced  by  it.  They  appear  to  allow  even  that  Faith- 
Healers  may  obtain  effects  which  they  cannot  themselves 
obtain;  or  at  least  more  readily  than  they  can  obtain  them. 
Mrs.  Eddy  has  her  characteristic  way  of  accounting  for 
this.     "It  is   asked,"   she   writes,    "why   are   faith-cures 


FAITH-CURES   AND   MIND-CURES  209 

sometimes  more  speedy  than  some  of  the  cures  wrought 
through  Christian  Scientists?"  And  she  answers  thus: 
"Because  faith  is  belief  and  not  understanding;  and  it  is 
easier  to  believe  than  to  understand  Spiritual  Truth.  It 
demands  less  cross-bearing,  self-renunciation,  and  divine 
science,  to  admit  the  claims  of  the  personal  senses,  and 
appeal  for  relief  to  a  humanized  God,  than  to  deny  these 
claims  and  learn  the  divine  way,  drinking  his  cup,  being 
baptized  with  his  baptism,  gaining  the  end  through  per- 
secution and  purity."  It  must  not  pass  without  notice 
that  a  somewhat  odd  admission  is  made  here  that  the  re- 
sults obtained  by  Christian  Science  may  also  be  obtained 
without  Christian  Science ;  sometimes  more  speedily  than  by 
Christian  Science;  by  an  appeal,  for  example,  to  a  human- 
ized God;  by  the  open  road  of  faith,  that  is,  rather  than  the 
difficult  path  of  understanding.  How  anything  can  be  ob- 
tained by  an  appeal  to  a  humanized  God  is  a  puzzle,  seeing 
that  it  is  presupposed  that  no  such  being  exists.  The  Faith- 
Healers  only  cry  out  to  the  void,  and  yet  they  get  their  re- 
sults, and  that  sometimes  more  quickly  and  always  with 
less  effort  on  their  part,  than  the  Christian  Scientists.24 
Various  methods  of  accounting  for  this  remarkable  fact 
have  been  suggested.  Marsdon  says  faith-cures  are  really 
mind-cures,  wrought  by  "anything  that  will  enable  a  sick 
person  to  change  his  thought,"  that  is  to  say,  they  are  not 
Mind-cures  but  mind-cures,  wrought  by  our  own  change 
of  thought,  which  indeed  is  asserted  scores  of  times  by 
Mrs.  Eddy  herself.  Mrs.  Kate  Taylor,  with  much  the  same 
implications,  explaining  the  difference  as  that  faith-cure 
requires  faith  to  be  healed,  and  mind-cure  does  not,  adds: 
"Prayer  to  a  personal  God  affects  the  sick  like  a  drug  that 
has  no  efficacy  of  its  own,  but  borrows  its  power  from  human 
faith  and  belief.  The  drug  does  nothing  because  it  has  no 
intelligence."  Similarly  Frances  Lord  represents  the  differ- 
ence to  be  one  of  theory  only,  not  of  practice,  while  with 
respect  to  the  theory  she  remarks  that  there  is  more  to  be 


210  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

known  than  the  Faith-Healers  admit.25  Such  statements 
undoubtedly  show  that  Christian  Scientists  do  not  deny 
that  faith-cure  may  be  acknowledged  to  be  an  undeveloped 
form  of  their  better  practice.  But  this  does  not  carry  with 
it  any  implication  of  immediate  historical  connection. 

It  was  out  of  a  very  different  soil,  in  point  of  fact,  that 
Christian  Science  actually  grew.  According  to  Mrs.  Eddy's 
own  account  her  previous  experience  had  been  in  other 
forms  of  distinctively  mind-cure.  She  had  dabbled  in 
homoeopathy  (her  then  husband  sometimes  practised  this 
art),  and  had  found  that  she  could  dilute  the  drugs  until 
nothing  of  them  was  left,  and  still  they  cured.  Then  she 
tried — so  she  says — mesmerism  under  the  guidance  of  "a 
distinguished  Mesmerist,"  or  as  she  elsewhere  speaks  of 
him,26  "the  magnetic  doctor,  Mr.  P.  P.  Quimby."  When 
it  was  subsequently  pointed  out  that  she  had  learned  her 
system  from  him — as  she  certainly  did — she  repelled  the 
statement  thus:  "The  cowardly  claim  that  I  am  not  the 
originator  of  my  own  writings,  but  that  one  P.  P.  Quimby 
is,  has  been  legally  met  and  punished."  She  also  toyed 
with  Spiritualism.  Her  own  account  of  the  origin  of  her 
doctrine  is,  that  having  been  for  years  a  sufferer  from 
chronic  disease,  she  met  with  an  injury  pronounced  by  her 
physician  to  be  necessarily  fatal,  and  was  left  to  die.  She 
concluded  not  to  do  so,  and  got  suddenly  well  instead. 
For  twenty  years  she  had  been  seeking  to  trace  all  physical 
effects  to  a  mental  cause,  and  now,  in  the  early  days  of 
February,  1866— the  birth-year  of  the  new  science,  then, 
according  to  her  account — she  "gained  the  scientific  cer- 
tainty that  all  causation  was  Mind,  and  every  effect  a 
mental  phenomenon." 27  Quimby  died  on  January  16, 
1866,  and  here,  hard  on  his  heels  follows  his  successor, 
with,  despite  all  denials,  nothing  in  her  hands  but  what  she 
had  got  from  him.  For  Quimby  was  not  a  mesmerist  or 
magnetic  healer  as  she  represents  him,  but  the  founder  of 
the  whole  school  of  Mental-Healers  which  has  flourished  in 


BEGINNINGS  OF   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE  211 

America  through  the  last  half-century.  And  it  turns  out 
that  not  only  was  Mrs.  Eddy's  fundamental  idea,  but  the 
characteristic  language  in  which  she  expresses  her  idea, 
Quimby's  before  it  was  hers.28 

First  as  openly  a  disciple  of  Quimby,  and  then,  progres- 
sively with  more  and  more  strength  and  even  violence  of 
assertion  of  independence  of  him,  Mrs.  Eddy  gradually  set 
her  doctrine  afloat.  She  was  already  teaching  it  in  1867. 
Her  advertisement  as  a  teacher  is  found  in  the  Spiritualistic 
paper,  The  Banner  of  Light,  in  1868.  In  1870  she  is  firmly 
established  and  greatly  prospering  at  Lynn,  in  partnership 
with  one  of  her  pupils,  Richard  Kennedy,  as  a  firm  of 
healers  on  the  basis  of  Quimby — Kennedy  doing  the  heal- 
ing while  she  taught.29  Meanwhile  she  was  writing.  In 
1870  her  first  pamphlet  was  copyrighted,  although  its  issue 
was  delayed  for  another  six  years.  At  length,  in  1875, 
appeared  her  magnum  opus — Science  and  Health  with  Key 
to  the  Scriptures — which,  revised,  and  rerevised,  and  re- 
revised  again — when  it  had  reached  its  440th  edition  in 
1907  the  editions  ceased  to  be  numbered — remains  the  sole 
text-book  of  Christian  Science;  or,  if  we  prefer  to  think  of 
Mrs.  Eddy's  followers  from  that  point  of  view,  the  Second 
Bible  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  Scientist.30 

Christian  Science,  above  all  other  religions  called  book- 
religions,  is  a  religion  of  a  book.  This  book  is,  of  course, 
represented  as  written  under  divine  inspiration,  and  as 
carrying  with  it  divine  authority.  "No  human  tongue  or 
pen,"  says  Mrs.  Eddy  in  its  opening  pages,  "taught  me  the 
Science  contained  in  this  book,  Science  and  Health,  and 
neither  tongue  nor  pen  can  ever  overthrow  it."  31  She 
would  blush,  she  tells  us,  to  write  of  her  book  in  the  strain 
she  uses  toward  it,  "were  it  of  human  origin,  and  I,  apart 
from  God,  its  author,  but  as  I  was  only  a  scribe  echoing 
the  harmonies  of  heaven,  in  divine  Metaphysics,  I  cannot 
be  supermodest  of  the  Christian  Science  text-book." 32 
The  book  is  received  in  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  given. 


212  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

"The  Bible  and  the  Christian  Science  text-book,"  writes 
Irving  C.  Tomlinson,  in  the  Christian  Science  Bible  Quar- 
terly Lessons,  "are  our  only  preachers.  As  the  discourses 
are  made  up  wholly  of  passages  from  the  Bible  and  the 
Christian  Science  text-book,  they  contain  nothing  of  human 
opinion ;  they  are  devoid  of  man-made  theories.  They  voice 
the  eternal  fact,  concerning  the  everlasting  Truth.  They 
set  forth  the  realities  of  being;  they  inform,  instruct,  and 
enlighten  concerning  the  verities  of  God  and  man."  When 
Tomlinson  says  that  the  Bible  and  Science  and  Health  are 
the  only  preachers  which  the  Christian  Scientists  have,  he 
is  declaring  the  literal  fact.  There  are  no  sermons  delivered 
in  Christian  Science  churches.  Whenever  and  wherever 
Christian  Scientists  meet  together  for  worship  the  service 
is  the  same.  A  passage  is  read  from  the  Bible  and  a  pas- 
sage is  read  from  Science  and  Health.  Some  hymns  are 
sung.  The  only  prayer  used  is  the  Lord's  Prayer,  followed 
line  by  line  by  Mrs.  Eddy's  adaptation  of  it  to  her  system 
of  teaching.  That  is  all.33  The  passage  from  the  Bible, 
it  should  be  noted,  is  read  by  the  official  called  the  Second 
Reader,  and  that  from  Science  and  Health  by  the  First 
Reader.34  The  place  given  to  Science  and  Health  in  the 
private  life  of  Christian  Scientists  is  comparable  to  that 
given  it  in  the  public  services.  Every  one  is  expected  to 
purchase  and  read  it;  and  not  only  to  read  it  but  to  pore 
over  it.  It  is  intended  that  it  shall  dominate  the  whole 
life.35 

When  we  open  the  book  thus  sent  out  into  the  world  as 
divine  in  origin  and  contents,  we  receive  a  painful  shock. 
It  is  hopelessly  confused  and  obscure  whether  in  matter 
or  in  style.  Even  Mrs.  Eddy's  disciples  sometimes  are 
frank  enough  to  admit  that  "the  first  reading  of  her 
chief  work,  Science  and  Health  with  Key  to  the  Scriptures, 
leaves  the  impression,  in  spite  of  much  that  is  strikingly 
beautiful  and  true,  that  there  is  a  prevailing  tone  of  in- 
coherence, contradiction,  illogicality,  and  arbitrary,  die- 


SCIENCE  AND   HEALTH  213 

tatorial  assertion,  with  no  regard  for  evident  fact  either  in 
the  realm  of  objective  nature  or  history."  36     To  go  to  the 
opposite  extreme,  a  high  dignitary  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
church,  Robert  Hugh  Benson,  declares37  that  "it  is  impos- 
sible to  describe  the  confusion  of  mind  that  falls  upon  the 
student  of  Science  and  Health"     "The  quasi-philosophical 
phraseology  of  the  book,  the  abuse  of  terms,  the  employ- 
ment of  ambiguous  words  at  crucial  points,  the  character 
of  the  exegesis,  the  broken-backed  paradoxes,  the  aston- 
ishing language,  the  egotism— all  these  things  and  many 
more  end  by  producing  in  the  mind  a  symptom  resembling 
that  which  neuritis  produces  in  the  body,  namely  the  sense 
that  an  agonizing  abnormality  is  somewhere  about,  whether 
in  the  writings  or  in  the  reader  is  uncertain."    He  is  al- 
most inclined  to  look  upon  the  fact  that  Christian  Science 
has  been  actually  propagated  by  such  a  book  as  a  proof  of 
its  divine  origin.     This  phenomenon  is  far  more  remarka- 
ble, he  intimates,  than  any  miracle  of  healing  Mrs.  Eddy 
claims  to  have  performed:  "for  she  has  done  more  than 
mend  broken  tissues  by  the  application  of  mind,  she  has 
mended  minds  by  the  application  of  nonsense."    Another 
writer  slyly  suggests  that  it  is  by  the  very  fact  that  the  book 
is  sheer  nonsense  that  its  effect  is  produced.38    If  we  would 
only  say  with  the  King  in  Alice  in  Wonderland,  "If  there's 
no  meaning  in  it,  that  saves  a  world  of  trouble,  as  we  needn't 
try  to  find  any  "—it  would  be  all  up  with  it.     The  mischief 
comes  from  trying  to  find  a  meaning  in  it.     "Given  the 
will  to  believe  by,  say,  the  cure  of  a  friend,  the  perusal  of 
the  book,  by  its  general  unintelligibility,  produces  a  kind 
of  mental  coma,  such  as  is  induced  by  staring  fixedly  at  a 
single  bright  spot."    It  hypnotizes  us,  in  short.39    It  is 
barely  possible,  of  course,  that  some  of  the  obscurity  of  the 
book  is  intentional,  designed  to  produce  just  this  effect. 
The  Unitarian  clergyman,  James  Henry  Wiggin,  who  served 
for  some  years  as  Mrs.  Eddy's  literary  adviser,  and  in  that 
capacity  revised  the  text  of  the  book  (from  1885  on),  sug- 


214  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

gests  as  much.40  "As  for  clearness,"  he  writes,  "many 
Christian  Science  people  thought  her  earlier  editions  much 
better,  because  they  sounded  more  like  Mrs.  Eddy.  The 
truth  is  that  she  does  not  care  to  have  her  paragraphs  clear, 
and  delights  in  so  expressing  herself  that  her  words  may 
have  various  readings  and  meanings.  Really,  that  is  one 
of  the  tricks  of  the  trade.  You  know,  Sibyls  have  always 
been  thus  oracular,  to  'keep  the  word  of  promise  to  the 
ear  and  break  it  to  the  hope.' "  Allow  this  theory,  however, 
the  fullest  application,  and  the  book  nevertheless  remains 
hopelessly  incompetent.  Wiggin  puts  his  finger  on  the 
true  cause  when  he  adds:  "Quimby  had  definite  ideas  but 
Mrs.  Eddy  has  not  understood  them."  Her  ability  lay  in 
other  spheres  than  in  that  of  philosophic  thought  and  lit- 
erary expression. 

Mrs.  Eddy's  pantheism  deprived  her,  of  course,  of  a 
personal  God,  and  she  insisted  on  the  impersonality  of 
God  with  the  utmost  vigor.41  But  she  rightly  found  what 
she  calls  "the  leading  factor  in  Mind-Science,"  in  the  con- 
sequent proposition  that  "Mind"  (with  a  capital  "M")  "is 
all,  and  matter  is  naught";  or  as  she  otherwise  expresses 
it,  that  "the  only  realities  are  the  divine  mind  and  its 
ideas";42  "nothing  possesses  reality  and  existence  except 
God."  43  She  sums  up  her  entire  teaching  in  four  funda- 
mental propositions  which  she  declares  to  be  self-evident, 
and  so  true  that  they  are  still  true  if  they  are  read  back- 
wards: (i)  God  is  all  in  all;  (2)  God  is  good;  Good  is  Mind; 
(3)  God,  Spirit,  being  all,  nothing  is  matter;  and  (4)  Life, 
God,  omnipotent  good,  deny  death,  evil,  sin,  disease."  44 
More  at  large  she  expounds  her  system  thus:  "God  is 
supreme ;  is  mind ;  is  principle,  not  person ;  includes  all  and 
is  reflected  by  all  that  is  real  and  eternal;  is  Spirit  and 
Spirit  is  infinite;  is  the  only  substance;  is  the  only  life. 
Man  was  and  is  the  idea  of  God ;  therefore  mind  can  never 
be  in  man.  Divine  Science  shows  that  matter  and  mortal 
body  are  the  illusions  of  human  belief,  which  seem  to  ap- 


DENYING  DISEASE  215 

pear  and  disappear  to  mortal  sense  alone.  When  this  be- 
lief changes  as  in  dreams,  the  material  body  changes  with 
it,  going  wherever  we  wish,  and  becoming  whatever  belief 
may  decree.  .  .  .  Besiege  sickness  and  death  with  these 
principles  and  all  will  disappear." 

Frances  Lord  says  the  first  lesson  we  must  learn,  accord- 
ingly, is  that  "in  the  universe  there  is  only  the  all  and  the 
nothing."  "God  is  all."  "Since  God  is  all,  and  God  is 
good,  the  all  is  the  good;  whatever  is  not  good  is  not  real 
and  may  be  proclaimed  so."  The  power  of  proclamation 
is  so  great  that  if  we  train  ourselves  to  deny  that  an  evil 
is,  and  to  affirm  that  it  is  not — it  is  not.  "We  could  teach 
ourselves  Denial,"  she  explains,  "using  any  error  to  deny 
away;  but  we  deny  Disease  because  we  have  set  ourselves 
this  particular  task."45  "Mind,"  she  says  in  further  ex- 
planation, "in  its  thinking  faculty  is  pure  understanding. 
Understanding  casts  a  shadow;  this  shadow  is  Intellect. 
Intellect  believes  things  and  has  opinions.  Intellectual 
belief  casts  a  shadow;  this  shadow  is  the  human  body."  46 
"If  the  body  shows  forth  a  bruise,  the  shadow  is  showing 
forth  as  a  defective  shadow.  Then  the  substance,  or  would- 
be  substance,  must  be  defective.  But  we  have  just  said 
it  is  intellectual  belief  that  plays  the  part  of  substance  to 
the  shadow  we  call  the  body.  Then  the  defect  must  be 
in  some  intellectual  belief:  it  must  consist  in  some  mis- 
taken opinion  or  notion  which  the  thinking  mind  holds.  .  .  . 
Yes,  the  bruise  pictures  out  some  mistaken  ideas." 47 
"What  is  the  harm  of  a  shadow?"  she  continues.  "There 
is  no  harm  whatever  in  a  shadow,  provided  it  knows  it  is 
a  shadow;  the  harm  of  error  comes  in  when  it  forgets  this 
and  claims  independence.  What  is  the  proper  way  to 
handle  a  shadow  ?  Shall  we  argue  with  it,  talk  to  it,  coax 
it?  No."  This  is  the  essential  teaching  of  the  whole 
school.  Only  Frances  Lord  goes  a  step  further  in  this 
shadow-dance.  She  believes  also  in  Karma:  that  is, 
shortly,  in  Inheritance.     If  the  cause  of  illness  lies  further 


216  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

back  than  this  life,  "it  is  incurable,  except  the  patient  can 
be  led  to  realize  in  so  deep  a  sense  the  meaning  of  the  words, 
'There  is  no  power  in  evil,'"  that  he  is  lifted  above  even 
"the  old  shadows  of  former  lives  and  thoughts."48 

Now,  if  bodily  disease  is  only  "an  appearance,  a  sensu- 
ous seeming,  an  empty  show,"  an  illusion  only — as  Mrs. 
Eddy  says,  "You  will  call  it  neuralgia,  but  I  call  it  Illu- 
sion"— all  that  is  necessary  to  cure  disease  is  to  dissipate 
the  illusion,  that  is  to  say,  to  change  the  mind.  No 
knowledge  of  anatomy  is  necessary;  no  medicament,  no 
regimen,  no  anything  except  the  projection  of  a  healthy 
image  of  body.  We  are  sick  because  we  think  ourselves 
sick;  we  are  well  whenever  we  change  our  minds  and  say 
we  are  well  until  we  believe  it.  There  is  only  one  possi- 
bility of  failure.  Suppose  you  are  thinking  yourself  well, 
but  others  persist  in  thinking  that  you  are  sick.  This  is 
unfortunate:  for  as  fast  as  you  project  yourself  a  well 
body,  they  project  you  a  sick  one.  You  must  get  all 
about  you  to  think  with  you  to  insure  success.  Nay,  you 
must  get  the  whole  world  to  do  so — unless  you  can  per- 
suade the  world  to  forget  you  utterly,  which  should  do 
just  as  well.49 

If  we  survey  the  system  of  Christian  Science  as  a  whole, 
with  an  active  desire  to  discover  in  it  elements  of  value, 
it  is  quite  possible  to  fix  upon  characteristics  which,  viewed 
in  the  abstract,  may  seem  admirable.  There  is  its  un- 
compromising idealism,  for  example ;  the  emphasis  which  it 
places  on  spirit  as  distinguished  from  matter.  There  is 
the  high  value  it  attaches  to  Truth,  as  over  against  other 
forms — emotional  or  volitional — of  human  activity.  And 
there  is  its  constant  inculcation  of  contentment  and  seren- 
ity, the  quiet  optimism  of  its  outlook  on  life,  which  must 
tend,  one  would  think,  to  the  production  of  a  demeanor, 
at  least,  if  not  a  character,  full  of  attractiveness.  These 
things  occur  in  the  actual  system,  however,  not  in  the  ab- 
stract but  in  very  concrete  forms;  and  the  concrete  forms 


MRS.   EDDY'S  IDEALISM  217 

in  which  they  occur  in  the  system  do  not  seem,  upon  being 
frankly  looked  in  the  face,  very  beautiful. 

It  is  easy  immediately  on  perceiving  the  idealistic  pre- 
suppositions of  Christian  Science  to  go  off  into  laudations 
of  idealism  in  general,  in  contrast  with  the  sordid  material- 
ism of  our  age.  But  it  is  our  own  idealism  we  are  lauding, 
not  Mrs.  Eddy's.  Her  idealism  is  a  sheer  pantheism,  in- 
volving a  complete  acosmism,  which  sinks,  not  the  material 
universe  only,  but  the  world  of  individual  spirits  as  well, 
in  the  ocean  of  undifferentiated  Being.  If  it  be  said  that 
Mrs.  Eddy  does  not  work  her  pantheistic  assumption  out 
consistently,  that  is  true  in  one  sense  and  quite  untrue  in 
another  and  much  more  important  sense.  It  is  true  that 
she  is  constantly  making  assertions  quite  inconsistent  with 
it;  that  in  her  attempts  to  expound  it,  she  cannot  main- 
tain her  consistency  three  sentences  at  a  time,  but  every- 
where presents  us,  as  Miss  Sturge  puts  it,50  "with  such  a 
tangle  of  incoherent,  inconsistent,  confused  statements, 
contradictory  to  each  other,  as  has,  perhaps,  never  been 
seriously  given  to  the  world  before."  But  with  all  her  in- 
ability in  expounding  the  details  of  her  thought  to  keep  in 
view  its  fundamental  pantheistic  postulate,  Mrs.  Eddy 
does  not  fail  to  make  this  pantheistic  postulate  consis- 
tently fundamental  to  her  system,  or  to  press  it  explicitly 
to  its  extremest  implications.  Her  system  is  precisely 
acosmic  pantheism,  that,  all  that,  and  nothing  but  that. 

From  another  point  of  view  also  it  is  absurd  to  speak  in 
terms  of  praise  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  idealism.  It  is  but  a  sorry 
idealism  at  the  best.  It  does  not  take  its  starting-point 
from  the  vision  of  the  spiritual,  from  an  enlarged  mental 
outlook  and  a  soaring  sense  of  the  value  of  spiritual  things 
— but  from  a  cringing  fear  of  the  evils  of  life,  as  life  is  and 
must  be  lived  by  creatures  of  sense.  It  makes  all  the  dif- 
ference whether  we  begin  by  affirming  spirit  and  draw  the 
inference  thence  to  the  relative  nothingness  of  the  material; 
or  begin  by  shirking  the  material  and  inferring  only  thence 


218  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

that  spirit  is  all.  The  centre  of  gravity  of  the  two  atti- 
tudes, though  they  be  described  in  identical  language,  is 
antipodal;  their  reactions  on  life — expressed  in  thought, 
feeling  and  doing — are  so  completely  contrasting  as  to  be 
in  point  of  fact  directly  contradictory.  Mrs.  Eddy's  be- 
ginning lay  in  the  denial  of  matter,  that  the  suffering  and 
trials  of  life  might  be,  if  they  could  not  be  escaped,  yet  as 
far  as  possible  circumvented.  Her  attitude  is  that  of 
flight,  flight  from  the  evils  of  life.  There  is  nothing  heroic 
about  it;  nothing  elevated  or  elevating.  We  fear  that  we 
must  say  that  it  looks  from  without  rather  sordid.  Her 
idealism  is  a  sham  idealism;  merely  a  mechanical  device 
for  the  eluding  of  life,  a  life  which  must  be  lived  in  a  world 
of  suffering  (of  which  Mrs.  Eddy  has  the  keenest  sense) 
and  sin  (of  which  she  appears  to  have  no  sense  at  all).51 
Of  course  the  device  is  as  vain  as  it  is  mechanical.  To 
deny  the  evils  of  life,  however  stoutly,  unfortunately  does 
not  abolish  them.  Mrs.  Eddy  herself  suffered  from  dis- 
ease and  weakness;  she  too  grew  old  and  died.52  Her 
idealism  is  as  false  to  all  the  facts  of  experience  as  it  is 
mean  in  its  origin.  And  we  must  add  that  it  is  as  cruel 
as  it  is  false  and  mean.  We  see  it  in  its  full  enormity  only 
when  we  see  it  at  work  on  helpless  sufferers — on  those  too 
ill  to  speak  for  themselves,  on  tortured  infancy.  The  an- 
nals of  the  practice  of  Christian  Science  on  sick  and  suffer- 
ing babies  belongs  to  the  history  of  atrocities.53 

Similarly,  when  we  are  tempted  to  praise  Christian 
Science  for  the  honor  which  it  does  to  Truth,  we  are  bound 
to  stop  and  ask,  not  only  materially,  what  this  Truth  is 
to  which  it  gives  honor,  but  also,  formally,  whether  it  can 
be  commended  for  the  functions  which  it  assigns  to  Truth 
in  its  system.  What  it  calls  "  Truth,"  when  it  speaks  hon- 
oringly  of  Truth,  is  just  its  pantheistic  theory  of  Being — 
that  all  is  mind,  and  mind  is  God,  and  besides  God  there  is 
nothing.  To  this  "Truth"  as  such — that  is  to  say,  to  its 
mere  apprehension  as  true — it  ascribes  all  healing  power. 


METAPHYSICAL  HEALING  219 

It  is  therefore  that  it  calls  itself  "metaphysical  healing," 
healing,  that  is,  by  metaphysics,  and  that  it  named  its 
college,  founded  in  Boston  in  1881,  the  "Massachu- 
setts Metaphysical  College."  This  is,  in  point  of  fact,  its 
only  distinguishing  feature,  borrowed  indeed  from  P.  P. 
Quimby,  but  made  all  its  own.  There  are  other  systems 
of  mental  healing  abroad,  seeking  healing  through  other 
mental  activities — faith,  say,  or  the  will.  Mrs.  Eddy  re- 
marks:54 "The  common  custom  of  praying  for  the  recov- 
ery of  the  sick  finds  help  in  blind  belief,  whereas  help 
should  come  from  the  enlightened  understanding."  "Will- 
power is  not  Science,"  she  says  again.55  "Willing  the  sick 
to  recover  is  not  the  metaphysical  practice  of  Christian 
Science,  but  sheer  animal  magnetism.  .  .  .  Truth  and 
not  corporeal  will  is  the  divine  power  which  says  to  dis- 
ease, 'Peace,  be  still.'"  A  "Christian  Science  Healer" 
explains  the  whole  matter  clearly.56  Every  man,  he  de- 
clares, has  a  "God-given  right"  to  "spiritual,  mental  and 
bodily  wholeness";  and  this  wholeness  is  "received  in 
proportion  to  man's  intelligent  understanding  of  the  God- 
nature  and  its  operation."  We  pass  by  the  mere  phrases 
"God-given  right,"  "spiritual,  mental  and  bodily  whole- 
ness." The  former  is  only  a  fashion  of  speaking  with  no 
specific  meaning  on  a  Christian  Scientist's  lips  except  as 
a  strong  way  of  saying,  it  is  an  inalienable  right.  The 
latter  is  merely  rhetorical  enumeration  to  emphasize  the 
single  idea  of  completeness;  on  Christian  Science  ground 
mind  and  body  are  both  nonentities  and  no  man  can  have 
a  right  to  anything  mental  or  bodily — he  has  only  a  right 
to  be  rid  of  all  such  things.  What  is  to  be  noted  is  that 
everybody  is  affirmed  to  have  an  inalienable  right  to  whole- 
ness, and  this  wholeness  to  which  every  one  has  an  inaliena- 
ble right  is  affirmed  to  be  actually  enjoyed  only — here  is 
the  point,  note  it  well — in  proportion  as  each  has  an  intelli- 
gent understanding  of  "the  God-nature  and  its  operation." 
Here,  you  see,  is  a  truly  rampant  intellectualism,  a  pure 


220  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

Gnosticism.  To  understand  is  to  have  and  to  be.  In  pro- 
portion as  we  understand,  and  understand  intelligently,  we 
possess.  The  thing  to  be  understood  and  the  understand- 
ing of  which  brings  wholeness  is  described  as  "the  God-na- 
ture and  its  operation."  In  this  system  "the  God-nature" 
is  denned  as  the  All.  "God  is  all,"  we  are  told,  "and  all 
is  God."  Understand  that,  and  you  are  "whole."  It  is 
the  mere  understanding  of  it  that  does  the  work ;  it  always 
does  the  work,  and  the  work  is  not  done  where  this  under- 
standing is  not  present.  This  is  the  reason  why  puzzled 
pastors  sometimes  complain— surely  they  are  themselves 
showing  little  understanding — that  members  of  their  flock 
who  are  tainted  with  Christian  Science  are  found  to  have 
turned  away  from  historical  Christianity.  It  is  the  first 
step  in  Christian  Science  that  you  must  turn  away  from 
historical  Christianity.57  It  is  the  "new  knowledge"  that 
does  the  work.  Unless  you  have  the  "new  knowledge" 
you  have  no  Christian  Science;  for  Christian  Science  is  just 
this  "new  knowledge,"  and  this  "new  knowledge,"  being 
just  pantheistic  acosmism,  is  the  contradiction  of  historical 
Christianity.  You  can  have  a  little  Christian  Science  in 
your  Christianity  just  as  little  as  you  can  have  a  little  water 
in  your  fire ;  and  a  little  Christianity  in  your  Christian  Sci- 
ence just  as  little  as  you  can  have  a  little  fire  in  your  water. 
The  things  are  mutually  exclusive. 

This  bald  intellectualism  is  pressed  even  to  the  absurd 
extreme  that  curative  value  is  ascribed  to  the  mere  read- 
ing of  Mrs.  Eddy's  writings.  "The  perusal  of  the  author's 
publications,"  she  tells  us  herself,  "heals  sickness  con- 
stantly." 58  A  palsied  arm,  we  are  told,  was  cured  by  read- 
ing a  single  sentence:  "All  is  Mind."  Sometimes,  no  doubt, 
appearances  are  against  this  doctrine.  But  Mrs.  Eddy  has 
her  explanation  and  her  encouragement  to  offer.  "If  pa- 
tients sometimes  seem  the  worse  for  reading  this  book,"  she 
says,59 — and  who  can  wonder,  if  they  do? — "the  change 
may  either  arise  from  the  alarm  of  the  physician,  or  may 


INCONSISTENCIES  221 

mark  the  crisis  of  the  disease.  Perseverance  in  its  reading 
has  generally  healed  them  completely."  This  is  healing 
distinctly  by  reading.  Tolle,  lege,  is  the  command  in  a 
new  sense. 

It  puzzles  us  greatly,  therefore,  to  learn  that  healing  can 
apparently  be  had  nevertheless  without  the  reading  of 
Mrs.  Eddy's  book,  and  indeed  without  the  understanding 
which  we  are  instructed  to  look  upon  as  itself  the  healing. 
Mrs.  Eddy  tells  this  story:60  "A  case  of  dropsy,  given  up 
by  the  faculty,  fell  into  my  hands.     It  was  a  terrible  case. 
Tapping  had  been  employed,  and  yet  the  patient  looked 
like  a  barrel  as  she  lay  in  her  bed.     I  prescribed  the  fourth 
attenuation  of  Argenitum  nitricum,  with  occasional  doses 
of  a  high  attenuation  of  Sulphuris.     She  improved  percep- 
tibly.    Believing  then  somewhat  in  the  ordinary  theories 
of  medical  practice,  and  learning  that  her  former  physician 
had  prescribed  these  remedies,  I  began  to  fear  an  aggrava- 
tion of  symptoms  from  their  prolonged  use,  and  told  the 
patient  so ;  but  she  was  unwilling  to  give  up  the  medicine 
when  she  was  recovering.     It  then  occurred  to  me  to  give 
her  unmedicated  pellets,  and  watch  the  result.     I  did  so, 
and  she  continued   to  gain.     Finally  she  said   that  she 
would  give  up  her  medicine  for  one  day,  and  risk  the  effects. 
After  trying  this,  she  informed  me  that  she  could  get  along 
two  days  without  globules ;  but  on  the  third  day  she  again 
suffered,  and  was  relieved  by  taking  them.     She  went  on 
in  this  way,  taking  the  unmedicated  pellets — and  receiving 
occasional  visits  from  me — but  employing  no  other  means, 
and  was  cured."     What  had  "metaphysical  healing,"  that 
is,  healing  through  understanding,  to  do  with  this  cure? 
If  understanding  is  healing,  how  was  this  woman,  who  did 
not  understand,  healed  ?     Of  course,  Mrs.  Eddy  would  say 
that  by  the  deception  practised  on  this  woman  she  was 
got  to  project  herself  gradually  a  well-body,  and  so  she 
gradually  found  herself  with  a  well-body.     But  that  is  not 
"metaphysical"  healing,  in  which  knowing  is  being. 


222  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

But,  it  seems,  not  only  may  you  be  healed  without  un- 
derstanding, but  you  may  fail  to  be  healed  even  if  you  do 
understand.  If  you  take  poison  you  will  die;  even,  it 
seems,  if  you  do  not  know  you  have  taken  it.  "If  a  dose 
of  poison  is  swallowed  through  mistake,  and  the  patient 
dies,"  Mrs.  Eddy  posits  a  case,61  "even  though  physician 
and  patient  are  expecting  favorable  results,  does  belief, 
you  ask,  cause  this  death?"  "Even  so,"  she  answers, 
"and  as  directly  as  if  the  poison  had  been  intentionally 
taken."  Then  follows  the  adjustment  of  the  case  to  the 
theory.  "In  such  cases,"  we  are  told,  "a  few  persons  be- 
lieve the  potion  swallowed  by  the  patient  to  be  harmless; 
but  the  vast  majority  of  mankind,  though  they  know  noth- 
ing of  this  particular  case,  and  this  special  person,  believe 
the  arsenic,  the  strychnine,  or  whatever  the  drug  used,  to 
be  poisonous,  for  it  has  been  set  down  as  a  poison  by  mortal 
mind.  The  consequence  is  that  the  result  is  controlled  by 
the  majority  of  opinions  outside,  not  by  the  infinitesimal 
minority  of  opinions  in  the  sick  chamber."  If  this  be  true, 
then  it  is  all  up  with  "metaphysical  healing."  It  is  not  the 
individual's  understanding;  it  is  the  common  opinion  of 
mankind — not  as  to  this  particular  case  of  which  few 
have  knowledge — but  in  general,  which  determines  results. 
Material  things,  having  the  ground  of  their  being  and  modes 
of  action  in  the  common  opinion  of  mankind,  are  just  as 
objectively  real  to  the  individual  as  if  they  had  the  ground 
of  their  being  and  modes  of  action  in  themselves.  The  in- 
dividual is  helpless  in  their  presence,  and  all  the  better 
understanding  which  he  may  possess  as  to  their  real  nature 
as  illusions,  can  serve  him  in  no  possible  way. 

A  pantheist  has  no  right  to  a  religion.  He  must  be  con- 
tent with  a  philosophy  and  its  postulates.  As  a  Christian 
Science  Healer  already  quoted  tells  us,  he  understands 
"the  God-nature  and  its  operation,"  and  forthwith  is 
"whole"  with  that  "spiritual,  mental  and  bodily  whole- 
ness" which  is  his  indefeasible  right.     Get  into  your  place 


TYPE  OF  PIETY  223 

as  a  part  of  that  great  whole  which  is  God,  and,  being  in 
your  place,  you  have  your  wholeness.  This  is  as  much  of 
a  religion  as  a  pantheist  can  have.  It  was  this  that  the 
Stoic  meant  when  he  said:  "Get  into  the  stream  of  nature, 
and  if  you  do  not  like  the  way  it  is  flowing,  at  least  you 
need  not  squeal."  62  And  this  is  the  reason  why  the  re- 
ligion of  mystics — who  are  pantheizing  in  their  fundamental 
thought — tends  to  run  into  what  we  call  Quietism,  which 
is  on  the  passive  side  resignation,  on  the  active  renuncia- 
tion, and  in  its  lowest  reaches  becomes  placid  acceptance 
of  the  lot  that  has  come  to  us,  in  its  highest  rises  into  dis- 
interested love.  Do  we  not  have  here  the  account  also  of 
the  special  type  of  piety  which  is  said  to  be  developed  in 
Christian  Science  circles?  Christian  Science,  we  are  told, 
has  brought  not  only  relief  from  suffering  and  disease,  but 
release  also  from  worry,  anxiety,  contentiousness.  We  will 
let  Frank  Podmore  depict  this  self-centred  piety  for  us. 
"The  religion  of  Christian  Science,"  says  he,63  "oils  the 
wheels  of  the  domestic  machinery,  smooths  out  business 
troubles,  releases  from  fear,  promotes  happiness.  But  it 
is  entirely  egoistic  in  expression.  .  .  .  For  Christian  Sci- 
entists there  is  no  recognized  service  to  their  fellows,  be- 
yond the  force  of  their  example."  "There  are  no  charities 
or  institutions  of  any  kind  for  social  service  in  connection 
with  the  Christian  Science  churches."  "Poverty  and  sin, 
like  sickness,  are  illusions,  errors  of  'mortal  mind/  and 
cannot  be  alleviated  by  material  methods.  If  a  man  is 
sick,  he  does  not  need  drugs;  if  poor,  he  has  no  need  of 
money;  if  suffering,  of  material  help  or  even  sympathy. 
For  the  cure  in  all  cases  must  be  sought  within.  The  New 
Religion,  then,  is  without  the  enthusiasm  of  Humanity. 
It  is,  in  fact,  without  enthusiasm  of  any  kind.  We  shall 
look  in  vain  here  for  spiritual  rapture,  for  ecstatic  contem- 
plation of  the  divine.  There  is  no  place  here  for  any  of 
the  passions  which  are  associated  with  Christianity,  nor, 
indeed,  for  any  exalted  emotion.     There  can  be  no  remorse 


224  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

where  there  is  no  sin;  compassion,  when  the  suffering  is 
unreal,  can  only  be  mischievous;  friendship,  as  we  shall 
see  later,  is  a  snare,  and  the  love  of  man  and  woman  a 
hindrance  to  true  spirituality.  There  is  no  mystery  about 
this  final  revelation,  and  there  is  no  room,  therefore,  for 
wonder  and  awe.  Here  are  no  'long-drawn  aisles  and 
fretted  vaults';  the  Scientist's  outlook  on  the  spiritual 
world  is  as  plain  and  bare  as  the  walls  of  his  temple,  shin- 
ing white  under  the  abundant  radiance  of  the  electric 
lamps." 

The  ethics  of  pantheism  tend  either  to  license  or  to  as- 
ceticism. The  flesh  is  nothing,  and  all  its  delights  and 
desires  are  nothing,  and  may  be  treated  as  nothing — 
whether  in  the  way  of  careless  indulgence  or  of  stern  ex- 
tirpation. We  may  be  thankful  that  Mrs.  Eddy's  thought 
turns  in  the  direction  of  asceticism,  though,  to  be  sure,  it 
is  to  an  asceticism  of  sufficiently  mild  a  type.  On  all  mat- 
ters of  dietetics  and  hygiene  she  of  course  pours  contempt, 
because  she  is  thinking  of  them  primarily  as  curative 
agents,  and  she  can  have  nothing  to  do  with  curative 
agents;  yet  she  manages  to  spice  her  remarks  upon  them 
with  an  ascetic  flavor.  Eat  what  you  please  is  her  prescrip- 
tion: much  or  little — it  is  all  nothing.  God  gave  men 
"dominion  not  only  over  the  fish  in  the  sea,  but  over  the 
fish  in  the  stomach."  64  But,  of  course,  remember65  "that 
gustatory  pleasure  is  a  sensuous  illusion,  a  phantasm  of  the 
mortal  mind,  diminishing  as  we  better  apprehend  our  spiri- 
tual existence,  and  ascend  the  ladder  of  Life" — Life  with  a 
capital  "L,"  for  Mrs.  Eddy  was  not  thinking  of  growing 
old.  "A  metaphysician  never  .  .  .  recommends  or  trusts 
in  hygiene."  66  "The  daily  ablutions  of  an  infant,"  writes 
she,67  "are  no  more  natural  or  necessary,  than  would  be 
the  process  of  taking  a  fish  out  of  water  every  day,  and 
covering  it  with  dirt,  in  order  to  make  it  thrive  more  vigor- 
ously thereafter  in  its  native  element.  '  Cleanliness  is  next 
to  godliness ' ;  but  washing  should  be  only  for  the  purpose 


ASCETIC  TENDENCIES  225 

of  keeping  the  body  clean,  and  this  can  be  done  without 
scrubbing  the  whole  surface  daily.  Water  is  not  the  natural 
habitat  of  humanity."  "Is  civilization,"  she  exclaims,68 
"only  a  higher  form  of  idolatry,  that  man  should  bow  down 
to  a  flesh  brush,  to  flannels,  to  baths,  diet,  exercise,  and 
air ? "  But  she  has  a  deeper  feeling.  "Bathing,  scrubbing, 
to  alter  the  secretions,  or  remove  unhealthy  exhalations 
from  the  cuticle,"  she  declares  in  her  earlier  editions  at 
least,  received  a  "useful  rebuke  from  Jesus'  precept  'Take 
no  thought  ...  for  the  body.'"  "We  must  beware,"  she 
adds,  "of  making  clean  only  the  outside  of  the  platter."  69 

It  is  with  respect  to  marriage,  however,  that  the  asceti- 
cism intrinsic  to  Mrs.  Eddy's  philosophy  pushes  nearest 
to  the  surface.  She  discourages  marriage  and  prefers 
celibacy.  "Is  marriage  more  right  than  celibacy?"  she 
asks,  and  answers,70  "Human  knowledge  indicates  that  it 
is,  but  Science  indicates  that  it  is  not."  And  so  far  from 
marriage  involving  children,  childless  marriages  are  the 
best  and  are  to  be  sought  after.71  To  the  objection  that, 
if  every  one  followed  this  advice,  the  human  race  would 
soon  perish,  she  has  a  ready  answer.  The  propagation  of 
the  species,  she  intimates,  does  not  depend  on  marriage; 
sex  is  an  error  of  the  mortal  mind.  "The  butterfly,  bee 
and  moth,"  she  says,72 — we  are  afraid  that  Mrs.  Eddy's 
knowledge  of  natural  history  was  defective— even  now  are 
reproduced  in  an  asexual  manner,  and  this  may — nay,  will 
— be  true  of  man  when  he  attains  more  nearly  to  his  true 
being.  Meanwhile,  these  are  times  of  ignorance;  and  dur- 
ing these  times  of  ignorance,  she  counsels,  let  marriages 
continue.73  Thus  Christian  Science  makes  its  concession 
to  "mortal  mind."  74 

We  observe  that  Mrs.  Eddy  has  an  eschatology.  She  is 
looking  forward  to  a  better  time  to  come,  when  all  that 
Christian  Science  dreams  should  be  shall  be.  Why  her 
dreams  of  the  future  should  take  the  form  of  this  golden 
age  we  do  not  quite  understand.     If  all  is  mind  and  mind 


226  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

is  God,  we  should  think  Mrs.  Eddy's  eschatology  would 
point  forward  to  a  time  when  all  the  wavelets  which  fret 
the  surface  of  the  infinite  deep  should  have  sunk  to  rest  in 
its  depths.  But  no,  the  paradise  she  looks  forward  to  is, 
apparently,  a  material  paradise.75  There  are  men  in  it, 
and  they  increase  and  multiply  and  replenish  the  earth — 
though  after  an  asexual  manner.  They  are  in  it  but  not 
of  it.  They  tread  the  adder  under  foot;  and  though  they 
drink  deadly  things,  they  will  suffer  no  harm — for  there 
will  be  no  "mortal  mind"  then  to  make  it  harm  them. 
They  will  walk  on  the  water,  it  seems,  and  turn  water  into 
wine,  and  multiply  loaves  and  fishes,  as  Jesus  once  did, 
but  men  cannot  do  now.  At  least  Herman  S.  Hering,  first 
reader  of  the  church  at  Concord,  seems  to  promise  this 
to  us,  "eventually."  "It  is  claimed  by  some  opponents," 
he  writes,76  "that  because  Christian  Scientists  do  not  walk 
on  the  water,  turn  water  into  wine,  multiply  loaves  and 
fishes,  as  did  Jesus,  and  because  they  still  have  to  do  with 
matter  at  every  turn,  the  doctrines  of  Christian  Science, 
especially  that  of  the  unreality  of  matter,  must  be  fallacious. 
Such  an  argument  is  like  that  which  declares  that,  because 
a  school-boy,  who  is  just  learning  to  add  and  subtract,  can- 
not work  out  a  problem  in  cube-root,  therefore  the  claims 
of  greater  possibilities  in  the  science  of  mathematics  are 
fallacious,  and  the  school-boy  is  badly  deceived  by  the 
promise  of  being  able  eventually  to  solve  such  higher 
problems." 

There  is  a  good  time  coming,  then,  and  we  may  con- 
fidently look  forward  to  it.  It  contains  for  us,  no  doubt, 
nothing  beyond  what  we  ought  to  have  here  and  now,  and 
would  have  here  and  now  were  it  not  for  the  interference 
of  "mortal  mind."  In  enumerating  the  benefits  which 
Christian  Science  confers  on  us,  Frances  Lord  includes  in 
the  list  such  items  as  these:77  "6.  We  do  not  need  to  fear 
any  climate.  ...  7.  We  do  not  need  to  travel  or  go 
away  for  a  change  of  air.  ...    8.  We  know  that  we  do 


A  GOOD   TIME   COMING  227 

not  really  live  by  eating,  and  this  mere  knowledge — with- 
out any  effort  to  do  without  food,  or  lessen  it,  or  indeed 
interfere  with  our  ordinary  simple  habits  at  all — has  the 
effect  of  making  us  less  dependent  on  our  meals  both  as  to 
what  and  when  to  eat.  9.  And  in  the  same  way  we  grow 
less  dependent  upon  clothing,  warmth  and  coldness,  for 
comfort."  But  she  immediately  adds:  "Here  let  us  say 
emphatically  that  we  neither  enjoin,  nor  encourage,  any 
experiments  about  food  or  clothing.  Experience  shows  us 
that  any  changes,  to  be  worth  anything,  must  and  do 
come  about  of  themselves,  in  persons  who,  having  learnt 
the  truth  of  life,  accepted  and  begun  to  live  by  it,  demon- 
strate it  naturally  and  spontaneously."  This  is,  of  course, 
only  a  repetition  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  constant  manner.  For 
example: 78  "Food  does  not  affect  the  real  existence  of  man 
.  .  .  but  it  would  be  foolish  to  venture  beyond  present 
understanding,  foolish  to  stop  eating  until  we  gain  more 
goodness,  and  a  clearer  comprehension  of  the  living  God."79 
But  what  about  the  success,  in  actual  healing,  of  this 
system  which  describes  "a  mental  cure" — this  is  the  way 
that  Luther  M.  Marsdon  puts  it — as  "the  discovery  of  a 
sick  person  that  he  is  well,"  and  the  practice  of  which  con- 
sists^simply  in  the  transference  of  this  thought  from  the 
practitioner  to  the  patient  ?  It  is  just  as  successful  as  any 
other  of  the  many  systems  of  mental  practice ;  no  more  and 
no  less.  Its  list  of  cures  is  long,  and  many  of  them  are  re- 
markable.80 We  have  no  reason  to  doubt  the  reality  of  large 
numbers  of  these  cures.  But  by  now,  we  surely  understand 
that  there  are  limitations  to  them  which  are  never  over- 
passed. These  limitations  are  brought  sharply  into  view 
by  a  challenge  cast  out  by  Professor  L.  T.  Townsend.81 
He  made  this  proposition:  "If  you  or  the  president  of  your 
college,  or  your  entire  college  of  doctors,  will  put  into  place 
a  real  case  of  hip  or  ankle  dislocation,  without  resorting  to 
the  ordinary  manipulation  or  without  touching  it,  I  will 
give  you  a  thousand  dollars.    Or  if  you  or  your  president, 


228  COUNTERFEIT  MIRACLES 

or  your  entire  college,  will  give  sight  to  one  of  the  inmates 
of  the  South  Boston  Asylum  for  the  Blind,  that  sightless 
person  having  been  born  blind,  I  will  give  you  two  thou- 
sand dollars."  The  money  was  never  called  for.  But  in 
the  Journal  of  Christian  Science  this  reply  appeared:  "Will 
the  gentleman  accept  my  thanks  due  to  his  generosity,  for 
if  I  should  accept  his  bid  he  would  lose  his  money.  Why, 
because  I  performed  more  difficult  tasks  fifteen  years  ago. 
At  present  I  am  in  another  department  of  Christian  work, 
where  'there  shall  be  no  sign  given  them,'  for  they  shall  be 
instructed  in  the  principles  of  Christian  Science  that  fur- 
nishes its  own  proof."  We  have  observed  that  in  a  similar 
vein  a  Faith-Healer,  Doctor  Cullis,  explained  that  "a 
broken  bone  is  not  sickness,  and  should  be  put  into  the 
hands  of  a  surgeon."  Mrs.  Eddy  does  not  thus  curtly 
refuse,  she  only  postpones,  the  treatment  of  such  cases. 
"Until  the  advancing  age  admits  the  efficacy  and  suprem- 
acy of  Mind,"  she  writes,82  "it  is  better  to  leave  the  adjust- 
ment of  broken  bones  and  dislocations  to  the  fingers  of  a 
surgeon,  while  you  confine  yourself  chiefly" — that  "chiefly  " 
is  very  good! — "to  mental  reconstruction  or  the  preven- 
tion of  inflammation  or  protracted  confinement."  Even 
while  saying  this,  however,  she  asseverates  that  cures  of 
this  kind  have  nevertheless  already  been  actually  performed 
both  by  herself  and  her  pupils. 

It  was  not  the  magnitude  of  the  task  asked  by  Professor 
Townsend  which  led  Mrs.  Eddy  to  palter  thus.  It  was  the 
nature  of  it.  The  drawing  of  a  tooth  is  not  a  great  thing, 
but  Mrs.  Eddy's  Science  was  not  equal  to  it.  We  do  in- 
deed hear  here  too  of  "more  difficult  tasks"  already  per- 
formed. We  hear,  for  example,  of  "  the  '  good-sized  cavity ' 
of  an  aching  tooth  filled  up  by  mental  treatment,  'not  with 
foreign  substance,  but  the  genuine,  white  and  perfect.' "  83 
But  when  Mrs.  Eddy  herself  had  a  troublesome  tooth,  she 
employed  the  good  offices  of  a  dentist  to  obtain  relief,  and 
even  availed  herself  of  his  "painless  method"  to  guard  her- 


LIMITATIONS   IN  PRACTICE  229 

self  from  suffering  in  the  process.84  The  explanation  she 
gives  runs  as  follows:  " Bishop  Berkeley  and  I  agree  that 
all  is  Mind.  Then,  consistently  with  this  premise,  the  con- 
clusion is  that  if  I  employ  a  dental  surgeon,  and  he  believes 
that  the  extraction  of  a  tooth  is  made  easier  by  some  ap- 
plication of  means  which  he  employs,  and  I  object  to  the 
employment  of  this  means,  I  have  turned  the  dentist's 
mental  protest  against  myself,  he  thinks  I  must  suffer  be- 
cause his  method  is  interfered  with.  Therefore,  his  mental 
force  weighs  against  a  painless  operation,  whereas  it  should 
be  put  into  the  same  scale  as  mine,  thus  producing  a  pain- 
less operation  as  a  logical  result."  This  is  very  ingenious. 
The  application  of  the  anaesthetic  to  Mrs.  Eddy's  tooth  was 
to  operate  not  on  Mrs.  Eddy,  directly,  but  on  the  dentist; 
it  was  not  to  keep  the  extraction  of  the  tooth  from  hurting 
Mrs.  Eddy,  but  to  keep  the  dentist  from  thinking  that  its 
extraction  would  hurt  Mrs.  Eddy.  But  the  real  question 
of  interest  is,  Why  did  Mrs.  Eddy  have  recourse  to  a  den- 
tist at  all?  85  The  toothache  and  the  tooth,  Mrs.  Eddy 
and  the  operator,  the  soothing  application  and  the  cruel 
forceps  were  one  and  all  illusions.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  the 
extraction  itself — the  act  of  a  nonentity  on  a  nonentity — 
did  not  happen. 

Sir  William  Osier  tells  us  in  a  few  direct  words  why  Mrs. 
Eddy  went  to  a  dentist.  "Potent  as  is  the  influence  of 
mind  on  body,"  he  writes,  "and  many  as  are  the  miracle- 
like cures  which  may  be  worked,  all  are  in  functional  dis- 
orders, and  we  know  only  too  well  that  nowadays  the 
prayer  of  faith  neither  sets  a  broken  thigh  nor  checks  an 
epidemic  of  typhoid  fever."  86  That  is  to  say,  directly,  by 
its  own  power.  It  may  do  either,  indirectly,  through  the 
gracious  answer  of  the  Almighty  God  who  has  infinite  re- 
sources at  His  disposal ;  who,  as  the  old  writer  to  whom  we 
listened  at  the  beginning  of  this  lecture  told  us,  creates 
physicians  and  medicines  and  gives  them  their  skill  and 
efficacy,  that  He,  the  Lord,  may  be  honored  in  His  marvel- 


230  COUNTERFEIT   MIRACLES 

lous  works.  But  Mrs.  Eddy  had  no  Lord  to  pray  to,  and 
no  faith  in  which  to  appear  before  Him,  and  no  hope  in 
His  almighty  succor.  Let  us  be  thankful  that  she  at  least 
had  a  dentist.87 


NOTES 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I 

THE   CESSATION   OF  THE   CHARISMATA 

i.  W.  Yorke  Fausset,  for  example,  unduly  restricts  the  number 
of  our  Lord's  miracles,  speaking  of  the  "severe  economy  with  which 
He  exercised  such  supernatural,  or  extranatural,  powers."  (Medi- 
cine and  the  Modern  Church,  edited  by  Geoffrey  Rhodes,  1910,  pp. 

175  ff.) 

2.  XapffffiaTa,  or  more  rarely  xvsu[j.<rrcx<£,  I  Cor.  12  :  1,  or 
86^on:a,  Eph.  4  :  8. 

3.  Charismata:  it  is  a  distinctively  Pauline  term,  occurring 
elsewhere  than  in  Paul's  writings  only  once  in  Philo  {Be  Alleg.  Leg., 
2  :  75)  and  once  in  the  First  Epistle  of  Peter  (4  :  10),  an  epistle 
which,  both  in  doctrine  and  language,  is  of  quite  Pauline  character. 

4.  Cf.  C.  F.  G.  Heinrici,  Das  erste  Sendschreiben  des  Apostel 
Paulus  an  die  Korinther,  1880,  p.  452:  "  Mosheim  says  that  Paul 
sketches  in  this  section  a  kind  of  Church  Directory.  That  goes 
too  far:  but  it  at  least  contains  the  outlines  of  a  Directory  of  Wor- 
ship in  his  community,  for  which  it  was  at  once  made  clear  that 
in  all  matters  which  concern  the  value  and  effect  of  the  worship- 
ping assemblages,  caprice  and  confusion  are  excluded."  W.  Bous- 
set,  Kyrios  Christos,  1913,  p.  106,  describes  very  vividly,  though  on 
the  naturalistic  hypothesis  explained  in  note  6  below,  what  their 
assemblies  were  for  the  Christians  of  the  Apostolic  times.  "Here  in 
the  assemblies  of  the  fellowship,"  he  writes,  "there  arose  for  the 
believers  in  Christ  the  consciousness  of  their  unity  and  peculiar 
sociological  individuality.  Scattered  during  the  day  in  pursuit  of 
their  daily  callings,  subject  in  an  alien  world  to  derision  and 
scorn,  they  came  together  in  the  evening  (no  doubt  as  often  as  pos- 
sible) for  the  common  sacred  meal.  They  then  experienced  the 
miracle  of  fellowship,  the  glow  of  the  enthusiasm  of  a  common 
faith  and  a  common  hope,  when  the  Spirit  flamed  up  and  encom- 
passed them  with  a  miracle -filled  world:  prophets  and  tongues, 
visionaries  and  ecstatics  began  to  speak,  psalms,  hymns,  and  spiri- 
tual songs  soared  through  the  room,  the  forces  of  brotherly  charity 
awoke  in  an  unsuspected  fashion,  an  unheard  of  new  life  pulsated 

233 


234  NOTES   TO  LECTURE  I 

through  the  crowd  of  Christians.  And  over  this  whole  surging 
enthusiasm  the  Lord  Jesus  reigned  as  the  head  of  His  community, 
immediately  present  in  His  power  with  a  tangibility  and  a  certainty 
which  takes  the  breath  away." 

5.  J.  H.  Bernard,  in  an  essay  on  "The  Miraculous  in  Early 
Christian  Literature,"  published  in  the  volume  called  The  Literature 
of  the  Second  Century,  by  F.  R.  Wynne,  J.  H.  Bernard,  and  S. 
Hemphill  (New  York,  James  Pott  &  Co.,  1892),  p.  145,  gives  a  use- 
ful but  incomplete  exhibit  of  the  references  to  the  exercise  of  these 
gifts  in  the  Acts  and  Epistles:  (1)  Tongues  :  Pentecost  (Acts  2)  and 
frequently  alluded  to  by  Paul  in  his  epistles;  (2)  Prophecy  :  fre- 
quently called  a  "sign"  of  an  Apostle,  and  also  alluded  to  in  the 
cases  of  Agabus  (Acts  11  :  28,  21  :  10),  the  twelve  Ephesian  dis- 
ciples on  whom  Paul  laid  his  hands  (Acts  19  :  6),  and  the  four 
daughters  of  Philip  (Acts  21  :  9);  (3)  Poison:  Paul's  viper  (Acts 
28  :  3);  (4)  Exorcism:  by  Paul  (Acts  16  :  18);  (5)  Healing:  by 
Paul  in  the  case  of  Publius  (Acts  28  :  8),  by  Peter  in  that  of  .Eneas 
(Acts  9  :  33),  by  Peter's  shadow  (Acts  5  :  15),  by  Paul's  clothing 
(Acts  19  :  12),  by  Peter  and  John  (Acts  3:7);  (6)  Raising  the  dead  : 
by  Paul,  in  the  case  of  Eutychus  (Acts  20  :  9),  by  Peter,  in  the  case 
of  Dorcas  (Acts  9  :  36) ;  (7)  Punitive :  in  the  cases  of  Ananias  and 
Sapphira  (Acts  5:5),  and  Elymas  (Acts  13  :  8);  (8)  General  refer- 
ences  to  signs  and  wonders:  attesting  Paul  and  Barnabas  (Acts 
14  :  3),  Stephen  (Acts  6  :  8)  and  Philip  (Acts  8:6). 

6.  Theologians  of  the  "Liberal"  school,  of  course,  deny  the 
miraculous  character  of  the  charisms  on  principle,  and  are  prone 
to  represent  them  as  the  natural  manifestations  of  primitive  en- 
thusiasm. "We,  for  our  part,"  says  P.  W.  Schmiedel  (Encyclopedia 
Biblica,  col.  4776),  "are  constrained  to"  "deny  the  miraculous  char- 
acter of  the  charisms,"  "and  to  account  for  everything  in  the 
phenomena  to  which  a  miraculous  character  has  been  attributed  by 
the  known  psychological  laws  which  can  be  observed  in  crises  of 
great  mental  exaltation,  whether  in  persons  who  deem  themselves 
inspired,  or  in  persons  who  simply  require  medical  treatment." 
From  this  point  of  view  the  charismata  belong  to  the  primitive 
church  as  such,  to  the  church  not  merely  of  the  Apostolic  age,  but 
of  the  first  two  centuries.  This  church  is  spoken  of  in  contrast  to 
the  staid,  organized  church  which  succeeded  it,  as  a  Charismatic 
Church,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  old  sense  of  the  word,  as  an  Enthusi- 
astic Church,  a  church  swept  along  by  an  exalted  state  of  mind  and 
feeling  which  we  should  look  upon  to-day  as  mere  fanaticism. 
"It  is  easily  intelligible,"  says  Schmiedel  (col.  4775),  "that  the  joy 
of  enthusiasm  over  the  possession  of  a  new  redeeming  religion 


CESSATION  OF  THE   CHARISMATA  235 

should  have  expressed  itself  in  an  exuberant  way,  which,  according 
to  the  ideas  of  the  time,  could  only  be  regarded  as  the  miraculous 
operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit."  Or,  as  Adolf  Harnack  {The  Expan- 
sion of  Christianity  in  the  First  Three  Centuries,  E.  T.  I.,  pp.  250  ff.), 
puts  it,  Christianity  came  into  being  as  "the  religion  of  Spirit  and 
power,"  and  only  lost  this  character  and  became  the  religion  of 
form  and  order  toward  the  end  of  the  second  century.  A  rather 
sharp  expression  of  this  view  is  given  in  an  (inaugural)  address 
delivered  in  1893  by  A.  C.  McGiffert,  on  Primitive  and  Catholic 
Christianity.  "  The  spirit  of  primitive  Christianity,"  he  says  (p.  19), 
"is  the  spirit  of  individualism,  based  on  the  felt  presence  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.  It  was  the  universal  conviction  of  the  primitive 
church  that  every  Christian  believer  enjoys  the  immediate  pres- 
ence of  the  Holy  Spirit,  through  whom  he  communes  with  God, 
and  receives  illumination,  inspiration  and  strength  for  his  daily 
needs.  The  presence  of  the  Spirit  was  realized  by  these  primitive 
Christians  in  a  most  vivid  way.  It  meant  the  power  to  work  mir- 
acles, to  speak  with  tongues,  to  utter  prophecies  (cf.  Mark  16  :  17— 
18,  and  Acts  2  :  16  ff.)."  McGiffert  is  not  describing  here  some 
Christians,  but  all  Christians;  and  all  Christians  not  of  the  Apos- 
tolic age,  but  of  the  first  two  centuries:  "By  the  opening  of  the 
third  century  all  these  conceptions  had  practically  disappeared." 
An  attempt  to  give  this  general  view  a  less  naturalistic  expression 
may  be  read  at  the  close  of  R.  Martin  Pope's  article,  "Gifts,"  in 
Hastings's  Dictionary  of  the  Apostolic  Church.  "To  sum  up,"  he 
writes  (vol.  I,  p.  451),  "an  examination  of  the  passages  in  apostolic 
literature  which  treat  of  spiritual  gifts  inevitably  brings  us  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  life  of  the  early  church  was  characterized  by 
glowing  enthusiasm,  simple  faith,  and  intensity  of  joy  and  wonder, 
all  resulting  from  the  consciousness  of  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit ; 
also  that  this  phase  of  Spirit-effected  ministries  and  service  was 
temporary,  as  such  'tides  of  the  Spirit'  have  since  often  proved, 
and  gave  way  to  a  more  rigid  and  disciplined  Church  Order,  in 
which  the  official  tended  more  and  more  to  supersede  the  charis- 
matic ministries." 

It  has  always  been  the  characteristic  mark  of  a  Christian  that 
he  is  "led  by  the  Spirit  of  God":  "if  any  man  hath  not  the  Spirit 
of  Christ  he  is  none  of  His."  It  has  never  been  the  mark  of  a  Chris- 
tian that  because  he  is  "led  by  the  Spirit  of  God"  he  is  a  law 
to  himself  and  free  from  the  ordinances  of  God's  house.  It  is  very 
clear  from  the  record  of  the  New  Testament  that  the  extraordinary 
charismata  were  not  (after  the  very  first  days  of  the  church)  the 
possession  of  all  Christians,  but  special  supernatural  gifts  to  the 


236  NOTES   TO  LECTURE   I 

few;  and  it  is  equally  clear  from  the  records  of  the  sub-Apostolic 
church  that  they  did  not  continue  in  it,  but  only  a  shadow  of  them 
lingered  in  doubtful  manifestations  of  which  we  must  say,  Do  not 
even  the  heathen  so  ?  How  little  this  whole  representation  accords 
with  the  facts  the  progress  of  the  present  discussion  will  show. 
For  an  examination  of  McGiffert's  position,  see  The  Presbyterian 
Quarterly,  April,  1895,  pp.  185-194.  For  a  vivid  popular  descrip- 
tion of  conditions  in  the  early  church  as  reconstructed  from  the 
"Liberal"  view-point,  and  brought  into  relation  to  the  "enthu- 
siasm" of  later  centuries,  see  The  Edinburgh  Review  for  January, 
1903,  pp.  148  ff. 

7.  R.  Martin  Pope,  as  cited,  p.  450,  speaks  of  modes  of  minis- 
try, "in  addition  to  the  more  stable  and  authorized  modes"  men- 
tioned in  I  Cor.  1  :  4-12,  28,  which  were  of  "a  special  order,  per- 
haps peculiar  to  the  Corinthian  Church,  with  its  exuberant  manifes- 
tations of  spiritual  energy,  and  certainly,  as  the  evidence  of  later 
Church  History  shows,  of  a  temporary  character,  and  exhausting 
themselves  {cf.  H.  B.  Swete,  The  Holy  Spirit  in  the  N.  T.,  London, 
1909,  p.  320)  in  the  Apostolic  or  sub- Apostolic  age."  In  contrast 
with  these  special  modes  of  ministry,  he  speaks  of  "the  charisms  of 
miracle-working  as  lasting  down  to  the  second  century,  if  we  may 
trust  the  evidence  of  Justin  Martyr  (Apol.,  2  :  6)."  In  the  passage 
of  Justin  appealed  to,  as  also  in  section  8,  and  in  Dial.,  30,  76,  85, 
it  is  said  only  that  demoniacs  are  exorcised  by  Christians;  cf.  G. 
T.  Purves,  The  Testimony  of  Justin  Martyr  to  Early  Christianity, 
1889,  p.  159.  We  shall  see  that  the  evidence  of  the  second  and 
subsequent  centuries  is  not  such  as  naturally  to  base  Pope's  con- 
clusion. When  he  adds  of  these  "charisms  of  miracle-working" 
that  "they  never  were  intended,  as  the  extreme  faith-healer  of 
to-day  contends,  to  supersede  the  efforts  of  the  skilled  physician," 
he  is  of  course  right,  since  they  were  confined  to  the  Apostolic  age, 
and  to  a  very  narrow  circle  then.  But  when  he  goes  on  to  say, 
"they  represent  the  creative  gift,  the  power  of  initiating  new  de- 
partures in  the  normal  world  of  phenomena,  which  is  rooted  in 
faith  (see  A.  G.  Hogg,  Christ's  Message  of  the  Kingdom,  Edinburgh, 
1 91 1,  pp.  62-70);  and  as  such  reveal  a  principle  which  holds  good 
for  all  time" — he  is  speaking  wholly  without  book,  and  relatively 
to  the  charisms  of  the  New  Testament  equally  wholly  without 
meaning. 

8.  A.  Tholuck's  figure  ("Ueber  die  Wunder  der  katholichen 
Kirche,"  in  Vermischte  Sckriften,  I,  1839,  p.  28)  is  this:  "Christ  did 
not  appear  like  the  sun  in  tropical  lands,  which  rises  without  a 
dawn  and  sets  without  a  twilight,  but,  as  millenniums  of  prophecy 


CESSATION  OF  THE   CHARISMATA  237 

preceded  Him,  so  miracles  followed  Him,  and  the  forces  which  He 
first  awoke  were  active  in  a  greater  or  less  measure  for  a  subsequent 
period.  Down  into  the  third  century  we  have  credible  testimonies 
of  the  persistence  of  the  miraculous  forces  which  were  active  in 
the  first  century."  A  mechanical  conception  of  the  miracle-work- 
ing of  both  Christ  and  His  followers  lurks  behind  such  figures; 
Christ  let  loose  forces  which  naturally  required  some  time  to  ex- 
haust their  energies. 

9.  Miscellaneous  Works,  London,  1755,  vol.  I,  p.  xli. 

10.  Works,  New  York,  1856,  vol.  V,  p.  706. 

11.  E.  T.,p.  169. 

12.  Persecution  and  Tolerance,  pp.  55-56. 

13.  On  the  literary  form  of  Hermas,  see  Kerr  Duncan  Macmil- 
lan  in  Biblical  and  Theological  Studies,  by  the  Faculty  of  Princeton 
Seminary,  191 2,  pp.  494-543.  The  Didache  tells  of  "prophets" 
who  spoke  "in  the  Spirit,"  as  apparently  a  well-known  phenomenon 
in  the  churches  for  which  it  speaks,  and  thus  implies  the  persistence 
of  the  charism — or  rather  of  the  shadow  of  the  charism — of  "proph- 
ecy." Papias  is  reported  by  Philip  of  Side  as  having  stated  on  the 
authority  of  the  daughters  of  Philip  that  Barsabas  (or  Justus) 
drank  serpent's  poison  inadvertently,  and  that  the  mother  of 
Manaim  was  raised  from  the  dead,  as  well  as  that  those  raised  from 
the  dead  by  Christ  lived  until  the  time  of  Hadrian  (cf.  Eusebius, 
H.  E.,  Ill,  39,  9;  below,  note  25);  these  events  belong,  in  any  event, 
to  the  Apostolic  age. 

14.  Cf.  H.  M.  Scott,  "The  Apostolic  Fathers  and  the  New 
Testament  Revelation,"  in  The  Presbyterian  and  Reformed  Review, 
July,  1892,  vol.  Ill,  pp.  479-488. 

15.  J.  B.  Lightfoot  discusses  these  miraculous  features  of  the 
letter  in  The  Apostolic  Fathers,  Part  II,  S.  Ignatius,  S.  Poly  carp, 
vol.  I,  pp.  598  ff.;  cf.  Bernard's  exhibition  of  their  natural  charac- 
ter op.  cit.,  p.  168.  H.  Giinter,  Legenden-Studien,  1906,  pp.  10  ff., 
remarks:  "thus,  out  of  the  entire  series  of  authentic  Passiones  there 
remains  as  an  outspoken  miracle-martyrdom  only  the  Acts  of  Poly- 
carp:  and  even  they  are  not  unquestionably  such." 

16.  Justin  Martyr,  by  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  ed.  3,  1853,  p.  121. 

17.  Cf.  Blunt,  On  the  Early  Fathers,  p.  387. 

18.  Doctor  Hey,  in  Terlullian,  by  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  ed.  2, 
1826,  p.  168. 

19.  Cf.  what  is  said  of  Justin's  and  Irenaeus's  testimony  by 
Gilles  P:son  Wetter,  Char  is,  Ein  Beitrag  zur  Geschichte  des  altesten 
Christentums,  1913,  p.  185:  "We  can  still  hear  of  xa-p^f^ra  in  the 
church,  in  Justin  and  Irenaeus.  .  .  .    Justin  and  Irenasus  are  prob- 


238  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I 

ably  the  latest  witnesses  of  a  prophetic  gift  of  grace  in  the  church. 
...  It  is  generally  wholly  uncertain  whether  we  can  still  really 
find  'gifts  of  grace'  in  the  church  in  great  amount  in  the  time  of 
Justin  and  Irenxus.     A  declaration  like  that  in  Justin,  Dial.,  82,  1, 

irapa  yap  tj/juu  Kal  P-^XP1  v^v  irpo<pi]TiKa  -xapiapsxTa.  koriv,  testifies  rather  to 

the  contrary.  If  both  steadily  speak  of  'we'  or  of  the  'church' 
or  the  like,  yet  it  is  possible  that  they  refer  by  this  to  the  great 
spiritual  operations  in  the  earliest  period  of  Christianity,  of  which 
we  read  in  the  Gospels,  in  Acts,  and  perhaps  in  some  of  the  Apoc- 
rypha. These  were  to  them  certainly  valuable  'proofs'  of  the 
truth  of  the  divine  origin  of  Christianity  (cf.  for  this  e.  g.,  Justin, 
Apol.,  I,  58;  Theophilus,  ad  Aut.,  Ill,  16  and  26;  Minucius  Felix, 
Octavius,  20  and  23)." 

1  20.  Bernard,  as  cited,  p.  147,  remarks  that  "with  a  few  notable 
exceptions,"  "  there  is  no  trace  up  to  the  end  of  the  second  century" 
— and  the  same,  we  may  add,  is  true  of  the  third — "of  any  miraculous 
gifts  still  existing  in  the  primitive  church,  save  those  of  prophecy 
and  healing,  including  exorcism,  both  of  which  are  frequently  men- 
tioned." With  reference  to  prophecy  he  adduces  the  warning 
against  false  prophets  in  Hermas  (Com.  11)  and  the  Didache,  to- 
gether with  Justin's  assertion  that  prophetic  gifts  continued  even 
— the  "even"  is  perhaps  significant — to  his  day  (Dial.,  315  B). 
As  to  healing,  he  adduces  the  general  assertions  of  Justin  (Dial., 
258  A)  and  Origen  (Cont.  Cels.,  Ill,  24).  With  respect  to  exor- 
cisms, he  appeals  to  repeated  references  by  Justin  (Apol.,  45  A; 
Dial.,  247  C,  302  A,  311  B,  350  B,  361  C)  and  Tertullian  (Apol., 
23»  37 >  43)  De  Sped.,  2;  De  Test.  Anim.,  3;  Ad  Scap.,  2;  De 
Corona,  11;  De  Idol.,  n).  He  remarks  that  these  Fathers  all  be- 
lieved in  magic  and  betray  a  feeling  that  the  miracles  of  their  day 
were  not  quite  the  same  kind  of  thing  which  happened  in  the  New 
Testament  times  (Tertullian,  De  Rud.,  c.  21;  Origen,  Cont.  Cels., 
1,2). 

21.  The  prominence  of  exorcisms  in  the  notices  of  marvellous 
occurrences  in  these  Fathers  belongs  to  the  circumstances  of  the 
times,  and  would  call  for  no  special  notice  except  for  the  use  which 
has  been  made  of  it  in  recent  discussions  (cf.  S.  McComb  in  Religion 
and  Medicine,  by  Elwood  Worcester,  Samuel  McComb,  and  Isador 
H.  Coriat,  1908,  pp.  295-299).  In  point  of  fact,  Christianity  came 
into  a  world  that  was  demon-ridden,  and,  as  Harnack  remarks  (The 
Expansion  of  Christianity,  E.  T.,  1904,  vol.  I,  p.  158),  "no  flight  of 
the  imagination  can  form  any  idea  of  what  would  have  come  over 
the  ancient  world  or  the  Roman  Empire  during  the  third  century 
had  it  not  been  for  the  church."    In  conflict  with  this  gigantic  evil 


CESSATION   OF  THE   CHARISMATA  239 

which  dominated  the  whole  life  of  the  people,  it  is  not  to  be  won- 
dered at  that  the  Christians  of  the  second  and  subsequent  cen- 
turies, who  were  men  of  their  time,  were  not  always  able  to  hold  the 
poise  which  Paul  gave  them  in  the  great  words:  "We  know  that  no 
idol  is  anything  in  the  world,  and  that  there  is  no  God  but  one." 
Accordingly,  as  Harnack  points  out,  "from  Justin  downwards, 
Christian  literature  is  crowded  with  allusions  to  exorcisms,  and  ev- 
ery large  church,  at  any  rate,  had  exorcists"  (p.  162).  But  this  is 
no  proof  that  miracles  were  wrought,  except  this  great  miracle,  that, 
in  its  struggle  against  the  deeply  rooted  and  absolutely  pervasive 
superstition — "the  whole  world  and  the  circumambient  atmos- 
phere," says  Harnack  (p.  161),  "were  filled  with  devils;  not  merely 
idolatry,  but  every  phase  and  form  of  life  was  ruled  by  them: 
they  sat  on  thrones;  they  hovered  over  cradles;  the  earth  was  liter- 
ally a  hell" — Christianity  won,  and  expelled  the  demons  not  only 
from  the  tortured  individuals  whose  imagination  was  held  captive 
by  them,  but  from  the  life  of  the  people,  and  from  the  world.  The 
most  accessible  discussion  of  the  subject  (written,  of  course,  from 
his  own  point  of  view)  may  be  found  in  Harnack,  op.  cit.,  vol.  I, 
pp.  152-180.  An  article  really  on  the  Christian  doctrine  of  angels 
has  somehow  strayed  into  the  bounds  of  the  comprehensive  article, 
"Demons  and  Spirits,"  in  Hastings's  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and 
Ethics,  and  thus  deprived  the  reader  of  the  description  which  he 
would  naturally  look  for  in  that  place  of  the  ideas  of  demons  and 
spirits  which  have  been  prevalent  among  Christians. 

22.  Philip  Schaff,  History  of  the  Christian  Church,  ed.  1884, 
vol.  II,  117  ff.,  sums  up  the  testimony  of  this  period  as  follows: 
"It  is  remarkable  that  the  genuine  writings  of  the  ante-Nicene 
church  are  more  free  from  miraculous  and  superstitious  elements 
than  the  annals  of  the  Nicene  age  and  the  Middle  Ages.  .  .  .  Most 
of  the  statements  of  the  apologists  are  couched  in  general  terms, 
and  refer  to  the  extraordinary  cures  from  demoniacal  possession 
...  and  other  diseases.  .  .  .  Justin  Martyr  speaks  of  such  oc- 
currences as  frequent  .  .  .  and  Origen  appeals  to  his  own  personal 
observation,  but  speaks  in  another  place  of  the  growing  scarcity  of 
miracles.  .  .  .  Tertullian  attributes  many  if  not  most  of  the  con- 
versions of  his  day  to  supernatural  dreams  and  visions,  as  does  also 
Origen,  although  with  more  caution.  But  in  such  psychological 
phenomena  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  draw  the  line  of  demarca- 
tion between  natural  and  supernatural  causes,  and  between  provi- 
dential interpositions  and  miracles  proper.  The  strongest  passage 
on  this  subject  is  found  in  Irenaeus,  who,  in  contending  against  the 
heretics,  mentions,  besides  the  prophecies  and  miraculous  cures  of 


240  NOTES   TO  LECTURE  I 

demoniacs,  even  the  raising  of  the  dead  among  contemporary  events 
taking  place  in  the  Catholic  Church;  but  he  specifies  no  particular 
case  or  name;  and  it  should  be  remembered  also,  that  his  youth 
still  bordered  almost  on  the  Johannean  age." 

When  Schaff  cites  Origen  as  speaking  of  a  "growing  scarcity  of 
miracles,"  his  language  is  not  exact.  What  Origen  says,  is:  "But 
there  were  signs  from  the  Holy  Spirit  at  the  beginning  of  Christ's 
teaching,  and  after  His  ascension  He  exhibited  more,  but  subse- 
quently fewer.  Nevertheless,  even  now  still  there  are  traces  of 
them  with  a  few  who  have  had  their  souls  purified  by  the  gospel." 
Here,  there  is  a  recognition  of  the  facts  that  miracles  were  relatively 
few  after  the  Apostolic  age,  and  that  in  Origen's  day  there  were 
very  few  indeed  to  be  found.  But  there  is  no  assertion  that  they 
had  gradually  ceased;  only  an  assertion  that  they  had  practically 
ceased.  "The  age  of  miracles,  therefore,"  comments  Harnack 
justly,  "lay  for  Origen  in  earlier  days."  "Eusebius  is  not  the  first 
(in  the  third  book  of  his  History)  to  look  back  upon  the  age  of  the 
Spirit  and  of  power  as  the  bygone  heroic  age  of  the  church,  for 
Origen  had  already  pronounced  this  judgment  on  the  past  from  an 
impoverished  present."  (The  Expansion  of  Christianity,  as  cited,  p. 
257,  and  note  2.) 

23.  The  History  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
chap,  xv,  §  in,  ed.  Smith,  1887,  vol.  II,  pp.  178  ff. 

24.  These  points  are  accordingly  duly  intimated  by  Milman  in 
his  note  on  Gibbon's  passage.  For  the  former  of  them  he  appeals 
to  Middleton  (Works,  I,  p.  59)  as  sponsor;  for  the  latter  to  Douglas 
(Criterion,  p.  389). 

25.  H.  E.,  Ill,  39,  9. 

26.  Bernard,  op.  cit.,  p.  159,  remarks  justly  that  Papias  "vir- 
tually implies  that  he  himself  never  saw  any  such  occurrence,  his 
only  knowledge  of  'miracles'  of  this  kind  being  derived  from 
hearsay." 

27.  Cf.  Bernard,  as  cited:  "If  they  were  frequent,  if  he  had 
ever  seen  one  himself,  he  would  have  told  us  of  it,  or  to  speak 
more  accurately,  Eusebius  would  not  have  selected  for  quotation  a 
second-hand  story,  if  the  direct  evidence  of  an  eye-witness  was  on 
record."  How  did  Eusebius,  then,  understand  Irenaeus?  As  tes- 
tifying to  a  common  occurrence  in  his  time?  Or,  even  to  a  single 
instance  within  his  own  knowledge?     This  seems  unlikely. 

28.  H.  E.,  V,  7,  1  f. 

29.  I  :  13:  "Then,  as  to  your  denying  that  the  dead  are  raised 
— for  you  say,  'Show  me  one  who  has  been  raised  from  the  dead, 
that  seeing  I  may  believe' — first,  what  great  thing  is  it  if  you  be- 


CESSATION  OF  THE   CHARISMATA  241 

lieve  when  you  have  seen  the  thing  done?  Then,  again,  you 
believe  that  Hercules,  who  burned  himself,  lives;  and  that  ^Escula- 
pius,  who  was  struck  with  lightning,  was  raised;  and  do  you  dis- 
believe the  things  that  are  told  you  by  God?  But,  suppose  I 
should  show  you  a  dead  man  raised  and  alive,  even  this  you  would 
disbelieve.  God  indeed  exhibits  to  you  many  proofs  that  you 
may  believe  Him.  For,  consider,  if  you  please,  the  dying  of  seasons, 
and  days,  and  nights,  how  these  also  die  and  rise  again,"  etc. 

30.  De  Pudicitia,  21:  "And  so,  if  it  were  agreed  that  even  the 
blessed  Apostles  had  granted  any  such  indulgence,  the  pardon  of 
which  comes  from  God,  not  from  man,  it  would  have  been  com- 
petent for  them  to  have  done  so,  not  in  the  exercise  of  discipline, 
but  of  power.  For  they  both  raised  the  dead,  which  God  alone 
can  do;  and  restored  the  debilitated  to  their  integrity,  which  none 
but  Christ  can  do;  nay  they  inflicted  plagues,  too,  which  Christ 
would  not  do,  for  it  did  not  beseem  Him  to  be  severe  who  had 
come  to  suffer.  Smitten  were  both  Ananias  and  Elymas — Ananias 
with  death,  Elymas  with  blindness — in  order  that  by  this  very 
fact  it  might  be  proven  that  Christ  had  had  the  power  of  doing 
even  such  (miracles)." 

31.  Adv.  Hceer.,  II,  31  :  2:  Speaking  of  the  followers  of  one 
Simon,  and  their  inability  to  work  miracles,  Irenaeus  proceeds 
(Bernard's  translation):  "They  can  neither  give  sight  to  the  blind, 
nor  hearing  to  the  deaf,  nor  put  to  flight  all  demons,  except  those 
which  are  sent  into  others  by  themselves,  if  they  can,  indeed,  even 
do  this.  Nor  can  they  cure  the  weak,  or  the  lame,  or  the  paralytic, 
or  those  that  are  troubled  in  any  other  part  of  the  body,  as  often 
happens  to  be  done  in  respect  of  bodily  infirmity.  Nor  can  they 
furnish  effective  remedies  for  those  external  accidents  which  may 
occur.  And  so  far  are  they  from  raising  the  dead  as  the  Lord 
raised  them,  and  the  Apostles  did  by  means  of  prayer,  and  as  when 
frequently  in  the  brotherhood,  the  whole  church  in  the  locality, 
having  made  petition  with  much  fasting  and  prayer,  the  spirit  of 
the  dead  one  has  returned  (iireffrptfe),  and  the  man  has  been 
given  back  (ixapfoOy)  to  the  prayers  of  the  saints — (so  far  are  they 
from  doing  this)  that  they  do  not  believe  that  it  can  possibly  be 
done,  and  they  think  that  resurrection  from  the  dead  means  a 
rejection  of  the  truth  of  their  tenets."  Adv.  Haer.,  II,  32  :  4: 
"Those  who  are  in  truth  the  Lord's  disciples,  having  received  grace 
from  Him,  do  in  His  name  perform  (miracles)  for  the  benefit  of 
other  men,  according  to  the  gift  which  each  one  has  received  from 
Him.  For  some  certainly  and  truly  drive  out  demons,  so  that 
those  who  have  been  cleansed  from  the  evil  spirits  frequently  be- 


242  NOTES   TO  LECTURE  I 

lieve  and  are  in  the  church.  Others  have  foreknowledge  of  things 
to  come,  and  visions,  and  prophetic  warnings.  Others  heal  the 
sick  by  imposition  of  their  hands,  and  they  are  restored  to  health. 
Yea,  moreover,  as  we  said,  even  the  dead  were  raised  and  abode 

with     US     many    years     (^yipOrjffav  Kal  nap^fieivav  ffiv  ijfj,Tv  Uavois  ereai). 

What  more  shall  I  say?  It  is  not  possible  to  tell  the  number  of 
the  gifts  which  the  church  throughout  the  world  has  received 
from  God  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  was  crucified  under 
Pontius  Pilate,  and  which  she  exerts  day  by  day  for  the  welfare 
of  the  nations,  neither  deceiving  any,  nor  taking  any  reward  for 
such.  For  as  freely  as  she  hath  received  from  God,  so  freely  doth 
she  minister."  It  is  quite  clear  that  in  II,  32  :  4  Irenaeus  throws 
the  raisings  from  the  dead  well  into  the  past.  This  is  made  evi- 
dent not  only  from  the  past  tenses  employed,  which  are  markedly 
contrasted  with  the  present  tenses  used  in  the  rest  of  the  passage, 
but  also  from  the  statement  that  those  who  were  thus  raised  had 
lived  after  their  resuscitation  a  considerable  number  of  years, 
which  shows  that  recent  resuscitations  are  not  in  view.  The  passage 
in  II,  31  :  2,  ambiguous  in  itself,  is  explained  by  II,  32  :  4,  which 
Irenaeus  himself  represents  as  a  repetition  of  it  ("as  we  said").  It 
appears,  then,  that  in  neither  passage  has  Iremeus  recent  instances 
in  view — and  there  is  no  reason  why  the  cases  he  has  in  mind  may 
not  have  occurred  during  the  lifetime  of  the  Apostles  or  of  Apostolic 
men. 

32.  As  cited,  p.  164.     Cf.  Douglas,  as  cited  in  note  24. 

33.  Th.  Trede,  W  under  glaube  im  Heidentum  und  in  der  alten 
Kirche,  1901,  pp.  83-88,  brings  together  the  instances  from  the 
literature.  No  doubt  the  heathen  did  not  really  believe  in  these 
resuscitations,  at  least  when  they  were  instructed  men.  It  did  not 
require  a  Lucian  to  scoff  at  them:  Minucius  Felix  (Octavius,  chap. 
1 1  ad  fin.)  makes  his  Caecilius  remark  that  despite  the  long  time 
that  has  passed  away,  the  innumerable  ages  that  have  flowed  by, 
no  single  individual  has  returned  from  the  dead,  either  by  the  fate 
of  Protesilaus,  with  permission  to  sojourn  even  a  few  hours,  or  to 
serve  as  an  example  to  men.  The  Christians,  he  asserts,  in  teach- 
ing a  resurrection  from  the  dead,  have  but  revamped  the  figments 
of  an  unwholesome  belief  with  which  deceiving  poets  have  trifled 
in  sweet  verses. 

34.  Cf.  Erwin  Rohde,  Der griechische  Roman  und  seine  Vorlaufer, 
1900,  p.  287,  note  1.  Also  Origen,  Contra  Celsum,  2  :  16,  48-58. 
The  famous  physician  Asclepiades  is  said  to  have  met  a  funeral 
procession  and  detected  that  the  corpse  was  still  living  (Pliny, 
Nat.  Hist.,  7  :  124;  cf.  Weinreich,  p.  173).    Apuleius,  Flor.,  19,  re- 


CESSATION  OF  THE   CHARISMATA  243 

lates  this  as  an  actual  resuscitation.    The  texts  may  be  conveniently 
consulted  in  Paul  Fiebig,  Antike  W under geschichten,  etc.,  ion. 

35.  Cf.  F.  C.  Baur,  Apollonius  von  Tyana  und  Christus,  p. 
140. 

36.  Antike  Eeilungswunder,  1909,  pp.  1 71-174. 

37.  Weinreich,  as  cited,  p.  171,  note  1;  R.  Reitzenstein,  Helle- 
nistische  W  under  erzdhlungen,  1906,  p.  41,  note  3. 

38.  Philostratus,  The  Life  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana,  etc.,  with  an 
English  translation  by  F.  C.  Conybeare  (The  Loeb  Classical  Li- 
brary), vol.  I,  191 2,  pp.  457  ff. 

39.  Cf.  E.  von  Dobschutz,  "Der  Roman  in  der  Altchristlichen 
Literatur,"  in  the  Deutsche  Rundschau,  vol.  CXI,  April,  1902,  p. 
105.  He  remarks:  "To  that  we  owe  it  that  so  many  of  these  legends 
have  been  preserved." 

40.  Von  Dobschutz,  as  cited,  p.  88.  "I  think  that  I  may  ven- 
ture to  say,"  says  Reitzenstein,  op.  cit.,  p.  55,  "that  the  literary 
model  of  the  Christian  Acts  of  the  Apostles  was  supplied  by  the 
Aretalogies  of  prophets  and  philosophers.  We  should  not  think 
merely  of  the  few  which  accident  has  preserved  for  us — and  that 
exclusively  in  literary  reworkings  or  parodies;  a  certain  importance 
attaches  to  the  connection  of  one  of  these  essentially  anonymous 
miracle-stories  already  with  Athenodorus,  the  Stoic  teacher  of 
Augustus." 

41.  Perhaps  we  may  roughly  represent  these  two  things  by 
"romance"  and  "fable." 

42.  Op.  cit.,  p.  97. 

43.  As  cited,  p.  100. 

44.  As  cited,  pp.  100  ff. 

45.  On  Greek  and  Latin  fiction,  the  short  article  by  Louis  H. 
Gray  in  Hastings's  Encyclopaedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics,  vol.  VI,  pp. 
6-8,  may  be  consulted,  and  the  work  on  which  Gray  chiefly  depends, 
F.  M.  Warren,  History  of  the  Novel  Previous  to  the  Seventeenth  Cen- 
tury, 1890,  pp.  21  ff.  A  good  brief  account  of  Greek  and  early 
Christian  novels  is  given  by  T.  R.  Glover,  in  the  last  chapter  of 
his  Life  and  Letters  in  the  Fourth  Century,  1901,  pp.  357-386.  The 
German  replica  of  this  is  Von  Dobschiitz's  essay  already  mentioned. 
The  great  work  on  the  Greek  romances  is  Erwin  Rohde's,  already 
mentioned,  by  the  side  of  which  should  be  placed  E.  Schwartz, 
Fiinf  Vortrdge  ilber  den  Griechcn  Roman,  1896,  and  A.  Chassang, 
Histoire  du  Roman  dans  V  Antiquite  Grecque  et  Latine,  1862.  Reitzen- 
stein, in  the  book  already  mentioned,  seeks  to  introduce  more  pre- 
cision into  the  treatment  of  literary  forms.  See  also  the  conclud- 
ing chapter  on  Die  Bekenner-vitce  in  E.  Gunter's  Legenden-Studien, 


244  NOTES   TO  LECTURE   I 

1906  {cf.  also  his  Die  christliche  Legende  des  Abendlandes,  1910), 
and  cf.  G.  H.  Gerould,  Saints'  Legends,  1916,  pp.  33  f. 

46.  The  use  to  which  this  opinion,  become  traditional,  is  put, 
may  be  illustrated  by  its  employment  by  Charles  Herman  Lea, 
A  Plea  .  .  .  for  Christian  Science,  191 5,  p.  58,  and  its  similar  em- 
ployment by  Samuel  McComb,  Religion  and  Medicine,  1908,  pp. 
295  ff.  The  former  writes:  "In  the  early  years  of  the  Christian 
Church,  this  command  to  heal  the  sick  appears  to  have  been  fulfilled 
to  a  considerable  degree,  and  history  records  that  Christian  healing 
was  practiced  until  the  end  of  the  third  century.  Then  it  appears 
to  have  been  gradually  discontinued,  as  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
church  declined,  until  the  power  was  entirely  lost  sight  of  in  the 
gross  materialism  that  culminated  in  the  union  of  Church  and  State. 
That  the  power  to  heal  is  not  generally  possessed  by  the  '  Christian' 
Church  to-day  is  certain;  nor  could  anything  be  more  misleading 
than  the  idea,  sometimes  propounded  from  the  pulpits,  that  the  abil- 
ity to  heal  was  withdrawn  because  it  became  no  longer  necessary  for 
the  church  to  give  such  evidence  of  God's  power,  and  of  their  under- 
standing of  Him.  For  this  very  power  was  the  evidence  that  Jesus 
Christ  himself  gave  as  proof  of  the  truth  of  his  teaching.  Hence, 
one  of  the  questions  that  the  churches  of  Christendom  need  to 
face  to-day  is,  'Why  are  we  unable  to  fulfil  our  Lord's  clear  and 
express  command?'  Is  it  because  they  do  not  correctly  under- 
stand his  teaching,  or  because  they  do  not  consider  obedience  to 
him,  in  this  respect,  necessary?  Or  has  the  church  not  yet  risen 
above  the  materialism  that  marked  its  decadence  in  the  early  cen- 
turies of  its  history?"  "Perhaps  nowhere  in  history,"  writes 
McComb,  "can  we  find  the  power  of  faith  to  heal  disorders  of  a 
semi-moral  and  semi-nervous  character  so  strikingly  illustrated  as 
in  the  early  centuries  of  the  church's  existence.  The  literature  of 
the  ante-Nicene  period  is  permeated  with  a  sense  of  conquest  over 
sickness,  disease,  and  moral  ills  of  every  kind.  .  .  .  Gibbon,  in 
his  famous  fifteenth  chapter,  mentions  as  the  third  cause  of  the 
spread  of  Christianity,  'the  miraculous  powers  of  the  primitive 
church,'  among  which  he  names  the  expulsion  of  demons,  but  he 
dismisses  the  whole  matter  with  a  scoff  as  a  product  of  superstition. 
Wider  knowledge  now  shows  that  the  historian's  skepticism  was 
quite  unjustified.  There  is  abundant  testimony  that  one  of  the 
most  important  factors  of  the  early  propaganda  of  the  Christian 
faith  was  an  especial  power  which  Christians  seemed  to  have  over 
various  psychical  disturbances.  .  .  .  Even  so  late  as  the  time  of 
Augustine,  we  find  a  belief  in  the  healing  power  of  faith  still  exist- 
ent.    In  his  City  of  God  he  describes  various  healing -wonders  of 


CESSATION  OF  THE   CHARISMATA  245 

which  he  was  an  eye-witness,  and  which  were  done  in  the  name  of 
Christ."  The  entire  angle  of  vision  here  is  unhistorical. 

47.  John  Lightfoot  (Works,  Pittman's  8  vol.  ed.,  vol.  Ill,  p. 
204)  suggests  as  the  reason  for  these  two  exceptions:  "The  Holy 
Ghost  at  this  its  first  bestowing  upon  the  Gentiles  is  given  in  the 
like  manner  as  it  was  at  its  first  bestowing  on  the  Jewish  nation, — 
namely,  by  immediate  infusion;  at  all  other  times  you  find  mention, 
of  it,  you  find  mention  of  imposition  of  hands  used  for  it." 

48.  Acts  9  :  12-17  is  no  exception,  as  is  sometimes  said;  Ana- 
nias worked  a  miracle  on  Paul  but  did  not  confer  miracle-working 
powers.  Paul's  own  power  of  miracle-working  was  original  with 
him  as  an  Apostle,  and  not  conferred  by  any  one. 

49.  Schaff-Herzog,  Encyclopedia  of  Religious  Knowledge,  1st 
edition,  vol.  II,  p.  873. 

50.  The  connection  of  the  "signs  and  wonders  and  manifold 
powers  of  the  Holy  Ghost"  in  some  particular  fashion  with  the 
first  generation  of  Christians — "them  that  heard"  the  Lord,  that 
is  to  say,  at  least  the  Apostolic  generation,  possibly  specifically  the 
Apostles — seems  to  be  implied  in  Heb.  2  :  4.  That  Paul  regards 
the  charismata  as  "credentials  of  the  Apostolic  mission"  (possibly 
even  Rom.  1  :  1 1  may  be  cited  here)  is  clear  even  to  J.  A.  MacCul- 
loch  (Hastings's  ERE.,  VIII,  p.  683  b),  although  he  himself  doubts 
the  soundness  of  this  view.  A.  Schlatter  (Hastings's  Dictionary  of 
the  Apostolic  Church,  I,  577  a)  says  with  great  distinctness:  "The 
Gospels,  the  Book  of  Acts,  and  the  utterances  of  St.  Paul  regarding 
his  'signs'  (II  Cor.  12  :  12),  all  show  distinctly  that  miracles  were 
intimately  related  to  the  Apostolic  function." 

51.  The  Ecclesiastical  History  of  the  Second  and  Third  Centuries, 
Illustrated  from  the  Writings  of  Terlullian,  1825;  2d  ed.,  1826;  3d  ed., 
1845,  pp.  98  ff. 

52.  Bernard,  as  cited,  p.  130,  gives  his  acceptance  to  Kaye's 
view,  speaking  of  "that  power  which  in  the  days  of  the  Apostles 
was  confined  to  them  and  those  on  whom  they  had  laid  their 
hands."  B.  F.  Manire,  in  an  article  on  the  "Work  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,"  in  The  New  Christian  Quarterly,  IV,  2,  p.  38  (April,  1895), 
gives  exceptionally  clear  expression  to  the  facts:  "The  matter  of 
imparting  the  Holy  Ghost  through  the  laying  on  of  their  hands, 
belonged  exclusively,  as  it  appears  to  me,  to  the  Apostles,  and 
therefore  passed  away  with  them.  .  .  .  Others  besides  the  Apos- 
tles could  preach  the  Gospel  'with  the  Holy  Spirit  sent  down  from 
heaven,'  and  could  work  miracles  in  confirmation  of  their  testi- 
mony; but  only  the  Apostles  by  the  imposition  of  their  own  hands 
could  impart  the  Holy  Spirit  to  others  in  its  wonder-working  power. 


246  NOTES   OT  LECTURE  I 

To  me  it  appears  that  the  bestowal  of  this  power  on  the  Apostles 
was  the  highest  testimonial  of  their  official  character  and  authority." 
Paton  J.  Gloag  comments  on  Acts  8  :  15-16  thus:  "By  the  Holy 
Ghost  here  is  not  to  be  understood  the  ordinary  or  sanctifying  in- 
fluences of  the  Spirit.  The  Samaritans,  in  the  act  of  believing  the 
gospel,  received  the  Holy  Ghost  in  this  sense.  .  .  .  The  miraculous 
influences  of  the  Spirit,  which  are  manifested  by  speaking  with 
tongues  and  prophesyings,  are  here  meant.  As  Calvin  remarks, 
'He  speaks  not  in  this  place  of  the  common  grace  of  the  Spirit, 
whereby  God  regenerates  us  that  we  may  be  His  children,  but  of 
those  singular  gifts  whereby  God  would  have  certain  endowed,  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Gospel,  to  beautify  the  Kingdom  of  Christ.' 
But  the  question  arises,  Why  could  not  Philip  bestow  the  Holy 
Ghost?  .  .  .  The  common  opinion  appears  to  be  the  correct  one 
— namely,  that  Philip  could  not  bestow  the  Holy  Ghost  because 
he  was  not  an  Apostle.  This,  though  not  expressly  stated,  yet 
seems  implied  in  the  narrative.  So  Chrysostom  and  Epiphanius 
among  the  fathers,  and  Grotius,  Lightfoot,  DeWette,  Baumgarten, 
Meyer,  Olshausen,  and  Wordsworth  among  the  moderns."  John 
Lightfoot  holds  that  the  charismata  were  not  conferred  indiscrim- 
inately on  all  but  only  on  a  select  few,  to  endow  them  (a  plurality 
in  each  church)  for  the  office  of  "minister."  But  that  these  gifts 
were  conferred  only  by  laying  on  the  Apostles'  hands  he  is  clear. 
Cf.  Works,  ed.  Pittman,  vol.  Ill,  p.  30:  "To  give  the  Holy  Ghost 
was  a  peculiar  prerogative  of  the  Apostles";  vol.  Ill,  p.  194,  com- 
menting on  Acts  8:  "Philip  baptized  Samaritans  and  did  great 
wonders  among  them,  but  could  not  bestow  the  Holy  Ghost  upon 
them:  that  power  belonged  only  to  the  Apostles;  therefore  Peter 
and  John  are  sent  thither  for  that  purpose." 

53.  Encyclopedia  of  Sacred  Theology,  E.  T.,  1898,  p.  368;  cf.  pp. 

355  ff. 

54.  Institutes  of  the  Christian  Religion,  E.  T.,  by  John  Allen; 
ed.  Philadelphia,  1909,  vol.  I,  pp.  26  ff.:  "Their  requiring  miracles 
of  us  is  altogether  unreasonable;  for  we  forge  no  new  Gospel,  but 
retain  the  very  same  whose  truth  was  confirmed  by  all  the  miracles 
ever  wrought  by  Christ  and  the  Apostles" — and  so  forth. 

55.  Gereformeerde  Dogmatiek2,  I,  pp.  363  f. 

56.  On  Wesley's  relations  with  Middleton,  see  F.  J.  Snell,  Wes- 
ley and  Methodism,  1900,  pp.  151  ff. 

57.  Free  Answer  to  Dr.  Middleton'' s  Free  Inquiry,  etc.,  1749. 

58.  A  Vindication  of  the  Miraculous  Powers  which  Subsisted  in 
the  Three  First  Centuries  of  the  Christian  Church,  1750.  Chapman's 
Miraculous  Powers  of  the  Primitive  Church,  1752  (following  up  his 


PATRISTIC   AND   MEDIEVAL   MARVELS        247 

Discovery  of  the  Miraculous  Powers  of  the  Primitive  Church,  1747) 
came  too  late  to  be  included  in  Middleton's  Vindication. 

59.  The  literature  of  the  subject  has  been  intimated  in  the 
course  of  the  lecture.  By  the  side  of  Middleton's  Free  Inquiry 
may  be  placed  J.  Douglas,  The  Criterion ;  or  rules  by  which  the 
True  Miracles  recorded  in  the  New  Testament  are  distinguished  from 
the  Spurious  miracles  of  Pagans  and  Papists,  1752,  new  edd.  1857, 
etc.,  1867;  and  Isaac  Taylor,  Ancient  Christianity,  1839;  ed.  4,  1844, 
vol.  II,  pp.  233-365.  Cf.  also  Lecture  VIII  in  J.  B.  Mozley,  Eight 
Lectures  on  Miracles,  1865.  Of  J.  H.  Newman's  Two  Essays  on 
Scripture  Miracles  and  on  Ecclesiastical,  some  account  will  be  given 
in  the  next  lecture.  By  its  side  should  be  placed  Horace  Bushnell's 
eloquent  argument  for  the  continuation  of  miracles  in  the  church 
in  the  fourteenth  chapter  of  his  Nature  and  the  Supernatural  (1858; 
ed.  4,  1859,  pp.  446-492). 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II 

PATRISTIC  AND   MEDIAEVAL  MARVELS 

1.  Horce  Sabbaticce,  vol.  II,  pp.  413  ff. 

2.  Gregory's  Panegyric  on  Gregory  Thaumaturgus  is  described 
and  characterized,  and  its  true  character  shown,  by  Th.  Trede, 
W under glaube  im  Heidentum  und  in  der  alien  Kirche,  1900,  pp.  144  ff. : 
"Our  declaimer  attains  the  climax  of  rhetorical  fire- works  in  his 
Christian  Panegyric  on  Gregory  Thaumaturgus."  In  this  connec- 
tion Trede  makes  some  very  illuminating  remarks  on  the  transfer- 
ence into  the  church  of  the  bad  traditions  of  the  heathen  rhetorical 
schools  in  which  so  many  of  the  Christian  leaders  had  their  training. 

3.  Cap.  8. 

4.  The  confidence  which  Augustine  reposed  in  these  narratives 
is  perhaps  most  strongly  shown  in  such  an  incidental  remark  as 
meets  us  in  the  City  of  God,  22  :  28.  He  is  speaking  of  Plato  and 
Cornelius  Labeo,  and  reporting  what  they  say  of  resuscitations. 
He  remarks:  "But  the  resurrection  which  these  writers  instance 
resembles  that  of  those  persons  whom  we  have  ourselves  known  to 
rise  again,  and  who  came  back  indeed  to  this  life,  but  not  so  as 
never  to  die  again."  Augustine  supposes  himself  to  have  actually 
known  people  once  dead  to  have  come  back  to  this  life;  he  has  no 
doubt  of  it  at  all. 

5.  Raising  the  dead,  so  common  an  occurrence  in  Augustine's 
day,  seems  later  to  have  passed  somewhat  out  of  fashion.  John  of 
Salisbury,  at  all  events,  when  speaking  of  the  miracles  wrought  at 


248  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II 

the  tomb  of  Thomas  a  Becket  (f  1170),  includes  this  among  them, 
but  speaks  of  it  as  something  new  to  experience:  "And  (a  thing  un- 
heard of  from  the  days  of  our  fathers)  the  dead  are  raised"  (E. 
A.  Abbott,  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury,  1898,  I,  p.  227,  cf.  II,  p.  17, 
and,  in  general,  the  Index  sub  voc,  "Death,  Restoration  from"). 
Later,  however,  this  miracle  recovered  its  popularity.  No  less 
than  fourteen  instances  of  it  are  attributed  to  Francis  Xavier — 
although  he  himself,  unfortunately,  died  without  knowledge  of 
them.  Andrew  D.  White  (The  Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology  in 
Christendom,  ed.  1896,  vol.  II,  p.  17)  sums  up  the  facts  thus:  "Al- 
though during  the  lifetime  of  Xavier  there  is  neither  in  his  own 
writings,  nor  in  any  contemporary  account  any  assertion  of  a  resur- 
rection from  the  dead  wrought  by  him,  we  find  that  shortly  after 
his  death  such  stories  began  to  appear.  A  simple  statement  of  the 
growth  of  these  may  throw  some  light  on  the  evolution  of  mirac- 
ulous accounts  generally.  At  first  it  was  affirmed  that  some  people 
at  Cape  Comorin  said  that  he  had  raised  one  person;  then  it  was 
said  that  he  had  raised  two  persons;  then  in  various  authors — 
Emmanuel  Acosta,  in  his  commentaries  written  as  an  afterthought 
nearly  twenty  years  after  Xavier's  death,  De  Quadros,  and  others — 
the  story  wavers  between  one  and  two  cases;  finally  in  the  time  of 
Tursellinus,  four  cases  had  been  developed.  In  1622,  at  the  canon- 
ization proceedings,  three  were  mentioned;  but  by  the  time  of 
Father  Bonhours  there  were  fourteen,  all  raised  from  the  dead  by 
Xavier  himself  during  his  lifetime,  and  the  name,  place,  and  cir- 
cumstances are  given  with  much  detail  in  each  case."  The  refer- 
ences to  Bonhours  are  given  thus:  The  Life  of  St.  Francis  Xavier, 
by  Father  Dominic  Bonhours,  translated  by  James  Dryden,  Dublin, 
1838,  pp.  69,  82,  93,  in,  218,  307,  316,  321.  For  the  repeated  oc- 
currence of  raisings  of  the  dead  in  mediaeval  legend,  see  H.  Giinter, 
Die  chfistliche  Legende  des  Abendlandes,  1910,  pp.  25,  32,  43,  47, 
191;  it  is,  in  spite  of  John  of  Salisbury's  ignorance  of  it,  of  common 
occurrence  in  the  legends.  An  instructive  instance  is  repeated  to 
us  by  H.  Delehaye,  Les  Legendes  Eagiographiques,  1905,  p.  101: 
"When  St.  Bernard  was  preaching  the  crusade  in  the  diocese  of 
Constance,  an  archer  in  the  following  of  the  Duke  of  Zahringen 
jeered  at  his  preaching  and  at  the  preacher  himself,  saying,  'He 
cannot  work  miracles  any  more  than  I  can.'  When  the  saint  pro- 
ceeded to  lay  his  hands  on  the  sick,  the  mocker  saw  it,  and  sud- 
denly fell  over  as  if  dead;  he  remained  a  considerable  time  without 
consciousness.  Alexander  of  Cologne  adds:  'I  was  close  to  him 
when  the  thing  happened.  .  .  .  We  called  the  Abbe,  and  this 
poor  man  could  not  get  up  until  Bernard  came,  made  a  prayer  and 
lifted  him  up.'    No  single  eye-witness  says  a  word  which  can  make 


PATRISTIC  AND   MEDIAEVAL   MARVELS        249 

us  think  of  a  resuscitation  of  a  dead  man.  Yet,  a  century  later, 
Herbert,  author  of  a  collection  of  the  miracles  of  St.  Bernard, 
Conrad,  author  of  the  Exordium,  and  Cesar  of  Heisterbach,  affirm 
that  the  archer  was  dead  and  the  saint  restored  him  to  life."  Dele- 
haye  refers  to  G.  Hiiffer,  Der  heilige  Bernard  von  Clairvaux,  vol.  I 
(Minister,  1886),  pp.  92,  182. 

6.  25  :  47. 

7.  §  34:  Nicene  and  Post-Nicene  Fathers,  vol.  Ill,  p.  364. 

8.  I,  14,  5- 
9-     I,  13,  7- 

10.  Ibid. 

11.  Nicene  and  Post-Nicene  Fathers,  vol.  I,  p.  346. 

12.  Tract,  in  J  oh.,  13,  (15):  Nicene  and  Post-Nicene  Fathers, 
vol.  VII,  p.  93.  When  he  says:  "Contra  istos,  ut  sic  loquar,  mira- 
biliarios  cautum  me  fecit  Deus  meus,  he  is  obviously  using  a 
contemptuous  term. 

13.  City  of  God,  22,  10,  at  the  end. 

14.  On  Augustine's  doctrine  of  miracles,  see  especially,  Friedrich 
Nitzsch,  Augustinus'  Lehre  vom  Wunder,  1865;  especially  pp.  32-35 
on  the  "Continuance  of  Miracles  in  the  Church,"  and  pp.  35-37, 
"Miracles  outside  the  limits  of  the  Revelation-history  and  the 
Church." 

15.  City  of  God,  22,  8. 

16.  Cf.  T.  R.  Glover,  Life  and  Letters  in  the  Fourth  Century, 
1901,  pp.  40,  287. 

17.  How  little  the  abounding  miracles  of  the  lives  of  the  saints 
were  noted — or  we  should  better  say,  known — in  mediaeval  times, 
we  may  learn  from  a  remark  of  H.  Giinter's  {Legenden-Studien, 
1906,  pp.  176  f.):  "For  the  proper  estimate  of  these  things  we  must 
bear  in  mind  that  contemporary  profane  history  very  essentially 
corrects  the  literature  of  the  Lives:  the  very  names  which  here  seem 
to  move  the  world,  scarcely  receive  bare  mention  there:  of  the 
flood  of  miracles  in  the  Lives  there  is  not  even  a  trace.  The  Chron- 
icles and  Annalists  were  nevertheless  children  of  those  times,  and 
receptive  enough  for  everything  that  was  miraculous.  The  notion 
which  might  occur  to  one,  that  the  Chronicles,  the  newspapers  of 
the  day,  purposely  left  the  domain  of  the  saints  to  biography  and 
romance,  is  clearly  untenable.  He  who  reads  Widukind's  History 
of  the  Saxons,  the  Continuatio  Regionis,  the  Chronicle  of  Thietmar 
of  Merceberg,  will  not  fail  to  learn  of  the  saints  of  the  Saxon  period. 
Thietmar's  description  of  the  saint-bishop  and  ascetic  Eido  of  Meis- 
sen (VIII,  c.  25)  is  a  true  classic.  But  saints  in  the  same  sense  of 
the  legend,  these  figures  are  not." 

18.  Dial,  III,  5. 


250  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II 

19.  Dial.,  I,  26. 

20.  Cf.  T.  R.  Glover,  as  cited,  p.  289:  "Sulpicius  says,  and  it  is 
not  improbable  that  he  is  presenting  Martin's  view,  as  well  as  his 
own,  that  to  doubt  these  marvels  of  healing,  etc.,  is  to  diminish  the 
credibility  of  the  gospel,  'for  when  the  Lord  Himself  testified  that 
such  works  as  Martin  did  were  to  be  done  by  all  the  faithful,  he 
who  does  not  believe  Martin  did  them,  does  not  believe  Christ 
said  so.'  Perhaps  the  logic  is  not  above  suspicion,  but  it  is- clear 
that  it  was  held  Martin's  miracles  were  proven  no  less  by  the  words 
of  the  gospel  than  by  ocular  evidence."  J.  H.  Newman  had  already 
made  much  the  same  remark,  Two  Essays  on  Scripture  Miracles 
and  on  Ecclesiastical,  p.  209:  "Sulpicius  almost  grounds  his  defence 
of  St.  Martin's  miracles  on  the  antecedent  force  of  this  text."  It 
would  be  a  curious  and  not  unprofitable  study  to  ascertain  how  large 
a  part  this  spurious  text  has  had  in  producing  spurious  miracles  in 
all  ages  of  the  church. 

21.  Ep.  22  :  9;  Nicene  and  Post-Nicene  Fathers,  p.  438. 

22.  Horn,  on  I  Cor.  6  :  2,  3  (Horn.  6,  vol.  X,  p.  45). 

23.  Horn.  8,  in  Col.  No.  5  (vol.  XI,  p.  387). 

24.  Cf.  e.  g.  Horn.  24  in  Joan.  (vol.  VIII,  p.  138);  Horn,  in  Iscr. 
Act.  (vol.  Ill,  p.  60). 

25.  Be.  Sacerd.,  lib.  4;  Opera,  ed.  Sav.,  vol.  VI,  p.  35. 

26.  Ep.  4  :  80. 

27.  In  Evang.,  2,  29. 

28.  Isid.  Hispal.  Sentcntiarnm  lib.  1,  cap.  27;  ed.  Col.  Agripp., 
1617,  p.  424. 

29.  Semi.  i.  de  Ascens.,  2. 

30.  The  Patristic  citations  in  this  paragraph  have  been  taken 
largely,  without  verification,  from  Newman,  op.  cit.,  pp.  135  ff., 
208,  and  W.  Goode,  The  Modern  Claims  to  the  Possession  of  the  Ex- 
traordinary Gifts  of  the  Spirit,  1834,  pp.  4  ff.,  275  ff.  Cf.  also  A. 
Tholuck,  Vermischte  Schriften,  I,  pp.  35  ff.  Such  passages  abound. 
H.  Giinter,  Legenden-Studien,  1906,  pp.  77  ff.,  very  naturally  raises 
the  question  whether  the  legends  of  the  Middle  Ages  really  wished 
to  be  believed,  and  whether  they  were  believed.  His  conclusion 
is  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  were  put  forth  as  literal 
facts,  but  that  the  credit  accorded  to  them  by  men  of  independent 
mind  left  certainly  something  to  be  desired.  "No  one  of  the  the- 
ologians of  importance,"  he  remarks  (p.  82),  "ever  made  an  attempt 
to  support  scientific  speculations  by  appeals  to  legendary  tales  as 
historical  evidence,  no  matter  how  near  at  hand  an  illustration 
from  them  lay."  Cf.  what  he  says  in  Legenden-Studien,  1906,  p. 
132:  "I  think  it  is  not  by  accident,  when  Cassian  observes  that  the 


PATRISTIC   AND   MEDIEVAL  MARVELS        251 

monks  of  his  time — he  died  in  435 — were  no  longer  subjected  to 
the  power  of  the  demons  as  the  'Fathers'  were.  Similarly  Gregory 
the  Great  later  finds  that  miracles  do  not  manifest  themselves  now 
as  in  the  past  {Dial.,  I,  c.  12).  And  the  same  reflection  is  repeated 
dozens  of  times  in  the  literature  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Is  there  not 
a  sufficient  suggestion  in  this?" 

31.  The  History  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
ed.  Smith,  1887,  vol.  II,  p.  180,  note  81. 

32.  Op.  cit.,  p.  220. 

S3.  Among  the  many  anomalies  of  the  legends  of  the  saints, 
the  question  asks  itself  why  the  saints,  many  of  whom  had  severe 
sufferings  to  undergo,  many  of  whom  were  lifelong  invalids,  never 
rescued  or  healed  themselves  by  the  exercise  of  their  miraculous 
powers?  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  for  example,  when  in  extremities, 
needed  to  be  saved  from  without — by  the  intervention  of  Mary, 
who  gave  him  her  breast.  Christina  Mirabilis,  it  is  true,  nourished 
herself  with  her  own  virgin  milk;  but  this  is  an  exception  to  the 
general  rule.  It  is  a  proverb,  "Physician,  heal  thyself";  yet  even 
the  most  diseased  of  the  saints  did  not  do  it — and  all  of  them  ap- 
parently died.  That  the  Martyr-heroes  of  the  Martyr-aretalogies 
ultimately  succeeded  in  dying  is  a  standing  wonder.  They  are  de- 
livered apparently  from  every  imaginable,  and  often  unimaginable, 
peril,  at  the  cost  of  every  imaginable,  and  often  unimaginable, 
miracle;  fire  will  not  burn  them,  nor  steel  cut  their  flesh;  the  sea 
will  not  drown  them,  nor  will  chains  bind  them.  They  bear  a 
charmed  life  and  walk  unscathed  through  every  conceivable  danger. 
And  then  suddenly  their  heads  are  simply  chopped  off  as  if  it  were 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world — and  they  are  dead.  The 
reader  catches  his  breath  and  cannot  believe  his  eyes:  the  exceeding 
sang-froid  with  which  the  author  kills  at  the  end  those  whom  nothing 
can  harm  in  the  meantime  produces  nothing  less  than  an  enormous 
anticlimax.  Has  the  miracle-power  of  the  martyr  given  suddenly 
out — been  all  used  up  in  its  wonderful  action  hitherto?  Or  is  it 
merely  that  the  invention  of  the  author  has  been  exhausted,  and 
he  has  to  close  thus  lamely  because  he  can  think  of  nothing  else  to 
say?  We  have  something  of  the  same  feeling  when  we  contem- 
plate sick  saints  healing  others  with  wonderful  facility,  while  ap- 
parently wholly  without  power  to  heal  themselves.  Is  it  adequate 
to  say  with  Percy  Dearmer  (Body  and  Soid,  p.  133):  "And  often, 
when  they  healed  others  they  did  not  spare  the  strength  to  heal 
themselves;  often  they  endured  without  thinking  of  themselves 
the  infirmities  which  they  could  not  bear  to  see  unhelped  in  others. 
They  thought  so  much  of  One  of  whom  it  is  said,  'He  saved  others; 


252  NOTES   TO  LECTURE  II 

Himself  He  cannot  save.'"  The  suggested  comparison  with  Christ 
is,  of  course,  offensive.  The  sufferings  of  the  saints  are  not  expia- 
tory sacrifices  offered  to  God  in  behalf  of  a  sinful  world — although 
it  must  be  sadly  acknowledged  that  many  of  them  (e.  g.,  the  Stig- 
matics)  fancied  they  were.  Christ  could  not  save  Himself,  not 
because  He  lacked  the  power  to  do  so,  but  because  the  work  which 
He  came  to  do  was  precisely  suffering — to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for 
many.  There  was  no  more  reason  in  the  nature  of  things,  on  the 
other  hand,  why  the  saints  should  suffer  than  others.  And  the 
description  which  Dearmer  gives  of  the  saints  is  not  true  to  life, 
in  many  instances  at  least.  They  do  not  seem  to  have  borne  their 
sufferings  without  thinking  of  them;  they  apparently  thought  a 
great  deal  of  them,  either  to  bewail  them  or,  by  a  spiritual  perver- 
sion, to  glory  in  them  as  a  mark  of  spiritual  distinction.  And  how 
does  it  do  to  say  in  one  sentence,  "The  saints  have  always  seemed 
to  regard  their  healing  works  as  easy  things,  done  by  the  way  and 
out  of  compassion";  and  then  in  the  next,  "They  did  not  spare 
the  strength  to  heal  themselves"?  If  it  cost  them  nothing  to  heal 
— if  they  did  it  with  a  passing  wave  of  the  hand — why  should  they 
have  not  healed  themselves?  The  sicknesses  of  the  saints  is  a 
standing  puzzle. 

34.  Horstman,  Richard  Rolle  of  Hampole,  vol.  II,  p.  xxviii. 

35.  Cf.  H.  Giinter,  Die  christliche  Legende  des  Abendlandes,  1910, 
p.  187,  who  cites  the  Vita  of  St.  Gongolf  at  the  end  of  the  ninth 
century,  and  Gislebert  of  Sens,  about  1150,  as  declaring  that  in 
the  absence  of  good  merit  miracles  are  nothing,  since  they  are  per- 
formed by  many  evil  men;  as  also  the  archdeacon  Robert  of  Ostre- 
vand  in  his  life  of  Aybert,  of  the  same  age,  who  remarks  that  the 
virtue  of  love  which  belongs  to  the  good  alone  is  of  far  more  worth 
than  the  virtue  of  miracles  which  belongs  alike  to  good  and  evil. 
Cf.  also  the  like  citation  from  Thomas  of  Reuil.  Giinter  refers  on 
the  general  matter  to  L.  Zopf,  Das  Heilegen-Leben  in  10  Jahrh.  in 
"Beitrage  z.  Kulturgesch.  des  Mittelalters  u.  des  Renaissance," 
herausgegeben  von  W.  Gotz,  Heft  1  (1908),  pp.  62  f.,  pp.  181  ff. 

36.  This  is  of  course  the  established  doctrine;  cf.  The  Catholic 
Encyclopedia,  vol.  X,  1911,  p.  351,  where  Benedict  XIV  is  quoted 
(on  Heroic  Virtue,  1851,  III,  p.  130)  to  the  effect  that,  since  the 
gift  of  miracle-working  is  a  grace  gratis  data,  it  is  independent  of  the 
merit  of  the  recipient;  even  bad  men  might  be  granted  it  (for  God's 
own  purposes)  and  good  men  denied  it.  It  forms  no  ground  of 
inference  then  to  saintliness.  But  do  not  difficulties  arise  then  with 
reference  to  the  customs  of  "canonization"? 

37.  Vol.  II,  p.  2049.    On  miracles  connected  with  the  host,  see 


PATRISTIC   AND   MEDLEVAL   MARVELS        253 

very  especially  Yrjo  Hirn,  The  Sacred  Shrine,  1912,  pp.  120  ff.,  with 
the  literature  given  on  pp.  502  ff. 

38.  Newman,  as  cited,  p.  134. 

39.  Middleton,  as  cited,  vol.  I,  p.  li. 

40.  Smith  and  Cheatham,  as  cited. 

41.  Diet,  des  Proprieties  et  des  Miracles  (Migne),  vol.  I,  p.  370. 
For  the  miracle  of  Bolsena  and  its  significance  in  the  historical  de- 
velopment of  the  legends,  see  H.  Giinter,  Legenden-Studicn,  1906, 
pp.  174  ff.;  cf.  Yrjo  Hirn,  The  Sacred  Shrine,  1912,  pp.  103  f. 

42.  Deut.  13  :  1  ff. 

43.  Biblical  Repertory  and  Princeton  Review,  April,  1856,  pp. 
255-285,  article  on  "Miracles  and  their  Counterfeits." 

44.  As  cited,  p.  99. 

45.  Pp.  115  ff. 

46.  Pp.  150  f. 

47.  This  portion  of  Fleury's  great  Histoire  Ecclesiastique  (Paris, 
1691-1720,  20  vols.,  quarto),  from  381  to  400  A.  D.,  translated  by 
Herbert  (London,  1828),  was  republished  in  three  volumes,  Oxford, 
1842,  in  a  text  carefully  revised  by  Newman,  and  supplied  with 
this  introduction. 

48.  P.  188. 

49.  Nor  indeed  can  John  T.  Driscoll  writing  as  late  as  191 1 
{The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  X,  p.  346).  If  we  may  judge  from  re- 
ports of  cases  in  the  public  press,  modern  surgery  provides  numer- 
ous similar  instances.  We  have  happened  to  clip  the  following  two 
examples.  The  New  York  Tribune  for  May  6,  1901:  "William  H. 
Crampton,  the  lecturer,  who  some  time  ago  had  the  greater  part  of 
his  tongue  cut  out  on  account  of  a  cancerous  growth,  is  now  able 
to  articulate  slowly  so  that  he  can  make  himself  understood.  .  .  . 
Crampton,  who  for  some  years  has  made  his  living  by  lecturing, 
just  before  the  operation  was  performed,  spent  two  days  in  de- 
livering his  lectures  into  a  phonograph.  His  idea  was  that  when 
he  left  the  hospital,  bereft  of  speech,  as  he  anticipated,  he  would 
still  be  able  to  earn  a  living  by  giving  phonograph  lectures.  .  .  . 
Doctor  L.  S.  Pitcher,  of  the  staff  of  the  Seney  Hospital,  who  per- 
formed the  operation,  has  asked  Mr.  Crampton  to  appear  before 
the  next  meeting  of  the  Brooklyn  Surgical  Society  in  order  that  its 
members  may  get  a  thorough  understanding  of  the  case.  Mr. 
Crampton  will  have  his  phonograph  records  with  him  to  show  the 
effects  of  the  operation  upon  his  speech."  The  Lexington  (Ky.) 
Leader,  January  n,  1906  (Associated  Press  Telegram):  "Chicago, 
Jan'y  10. — Frederick  Power,  actor  and  stage-manager,  who  had 
his  tongue  cut  from  his  mouth  in  an  operation  for  cancer  five  weeks 


254  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II 

ago,  is  again  able  to  talk  so  as  to  be  understood.  The  case  is  said 
by  physicians  to  be  a  remarkable  triumph  for  surgery.  All  of  Mr. 
Power's  tongue  and  part  of  the  root  had  to  be  removed  in  the 
operation.  With  his  tongue  gone,  he  is  able  to  articulate,  uttering 
some  words  quite  distinctly.  For  several  days  Mr.  Power  has  been 
attempting  to  sing,  and  the  hospital  attendants  say  that  while  the 
efforts  were  not  entirely  successful,  they  have  encouraged  the  pa- 
tient and  made  him  quite  hopeful.  There  is  still  some  paralysis 
in  Mr.  Power's  lower  lip,  due  to  the  operation,  and  there  is  a  heavy 
gold  bridge  in  his  mouth.  His  jaw  is  still  held  in  a  heavy  plaster 
cast,  and  when  these  impediments  are  removed  it  is  believed  he 
will  be  able  to  articulate  fairly  well." 

50.  Philomythus :  An  Antidote  against  Credulity.  A  Discus- 
sion of  Cardinal  Newman's  Essay  on  Ecclesiastical  Miracles.  By 
Edwin  A.  Abbott,  1891.     Second  edition,  1891. 

51.  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury :  His  Death  and  Miracles.  By 
Edwin  A.  Abbott,  M.A.,  D.D.,  2  vols.,  1898. 

52.  P.  189. 

53.  Loc.  cit.,  p.  105,  note  2. 

54.  Op.  cit.,  p.  55;  cf.  pp.  82  ff. 

55-     PP.  54  ff- 

56.  Loc.  cit.,  p.  384. 

57.  Pp.  81  f.  On  the  integrity  of  the  present  text  of  the  Life 
of  Hilarion,  see  H.  Giinter,  Legenden-Studien,  1906,  p.  130,  note  3. 

58.  Th.  Trede,  in  the  chapter  on  "Monchtum,"  in  his  W under  - 
glaube  im  Beidentum  und  in  der  alien  Kirche,  1901,  has  some  very 
useful  remarks  (pp.  213  ff.)  on  Athanasius's  Life  of  Antony  and  its 
relation  to  the  miracle-love  of  the  times.  "As  apostle  of  Monasti- 
cism,"  he  says,  "Athanasius  becomes  a  rhetorician,  with  reference 
to  whom  we  ask,  Where  does  fancy  stop  and  where  does  reality 
begin?  When  the  great  doctor  of  the  church  assures  us  that  he 
has  throughout  looked  only  to  the  truth,  his  idea  of  the  truth  was 
not  different  from  that  which  we  have  found  among  other  leaders  of 
the  church  and  permitted  him  such  means  to  reach  his  purpose  as 
were  looked  upon  as  self-evident  in  the  heathen  notions  of  the  time." 
With  an  appeal,  then,  to  Lucian's  exposition  of  the  different  laws 
which  govern  history  and  panegyrics  (The  Way  to  Write  History, 
7  and  8:  "The  panegyrist  has  only  one  concern — to  commend  and 
gratify  his  living  theme  some  way  or  other;  if  misrepresentation 
will  serve  his  purpose,  he  has  no  objection  to  that.  History,  on 
the  other  hand,  abhors  the  intrusion  of  any  least  scruple  of  false- 
hood .  .  ."),  he  continues:  "The  Life  of  Antony  by  Athanasius 
is  a  panegyric,  just  such  as  Gregory  of  Nyssa  wrote  about  Gregory 


PATRISTIC  AND   MEDIEVAL   MARVELS        255 

Thaumaturgus.  .  .  ."  When  Gregory  of  Nazianzus  describes 
Athanasius  as  setting  forth  in  this  book  "lv  ir\i,afiari  of  a  narrative, 
the  laws  of  the  monastic  life"  {Oration  XXI,  5,  Post-Nicene  Fathers, 
p.  270),  does  he  not  really  suggest  that  it  is  fiction,  in  part  at  least? 
Trede  discusses  in  a  similar  spirit  Jerome's  Lives  of  Paul  and  Hil- 
arion.  On  the  Vita  Pauli,  see  Weingarten,  PRE1,  X,  760,  and 
Griitzmacher  PRE?,  XIII,  217.  The  reality  of  Paul's  existence 
is  defended  by  Butler,  The  Lausiac  History,  I,  231,  and  Workman, 
The  Evolution  of  the  Monastic  Ideal,  1913,  p.  96,  both  of  whom  de- 
fend also  the  historicity  of  the  Life  of  Antony,  I,  178  and  354  re- 
spectively. The  Lausiac  History  is  interpreted  as  a  mere  romance 
also  by  Lucius  and  Amelineau,  but  defended  as  history  by  Butler, 
I,  257  ff.  There  is  a  good  brief  statement  of  Athanasius's  relation 
to  miracle-working  in  the  Vita  Antonii  and  elsewhere,  in  A.  Robert- 
son's preface  to  the  English  translation  of  the  Vita  Antonii  printed 
in  the  Nicene  and  Post-Nicene  Fathers,  II,  n,  p.  192. 

59.  ■  Das  Monchthum,  seine  Ideale  und  seine  Geschichte,1  1881, 
p.  21;  ed.  3,  1886,  p.  27;  cf.  G.  Griitzmacher,  Hieronymus,  I,  p.  162. 

60.  Op.  cit.,  pp.  1  f. 

61.  See  Acts  of  Peter  and  Andrew,  in  the  Ante-Nicene  Fathers, 
Am.  ed.,  vol.  VIII,  p.  527:  "Peter  says  to  him:  One  thing  I  say 
unto  thee:  it  is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle, 
than  for  a  rich  man  to  go  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  When 
Onesiphorus  heard  this,  he  was  still  more  filled  with  rage  and 
anger,  .  .  .  saying,  ...  If  thou  wilt  show  me  this  miracle,  I  will 
believe  in  thy  God,  .  .  .  but  if  not  thou  shalt  be  grievously  pun- 
ished. .  .  .  The  Saviour  appeared  .  .  .  and  he  says  to  them, 
Be  courageous  and  tremble  not,  my  chosen  disciples,  for  I  am  with 
you  always:  let  the  needle  and  camel  be  brought.  .  .  .  And  there 
was  a  certain  merchant  in  the  city,  who  had  believed  in  the  Lord, 
.  .  .  and,  ...  he  ran  and  searched  for  a  needle  with  a  big  eye, 
to  do  a  favour  to  the  Apostles.  When  Peter  learned  this,  he  said, 
My  son,  do  not  search  for  a  big  needle,  for  nothing  is  impossible 
with  God:  rather  bring  us  a  small  needle.  And  after  the  needle 
had  been  brought  .  .  .  Peter  looked  up  and  saw  a  camel  coming. 
.  .  .  Then  he  fixed  the  needle  in  the  ground,  and  cried  out  with  a 
loud  voice,  saying,  In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  was  cruci- 
fied under  Pontius  Pilate,  I  order  thee,  0  camel,  to  go  through  the 
eye  of  the  needle.  Then  the  eye  of  the  needle  was  opened  like  a 
gate,  and  the  camel  went  through  it,  and  all  the  multitude  saw  it. 
And  Peter  says  to  the  camel:  Go  again  through  the  needle.  And 
the  camel  went  through  the  second  time."  Even  this  is  not  enough. 
Onesiphorus  now  provides  a  needle  and  a  camel  of  his  own,  and 


256  NOTES   TO  LECTURE   II 

sets  a  woman  on  the  camel — and  the  same  thing  is  done.     Is  not 
the  conception  here,  mere  magic? 

62.  The  Ancient  Catholic  Church,  1902,  pp.  302  f. 

63.  Casarius  von  Ar elate,  1894,  p.  165. 

64.  P.  166,  note  545  (see  Migne,  Pat.  Lat.,  XXXIX,  2257,  3). 

65.  E.  T.,  pp.  S3  f-  His  reference  is  Cesar  of  Heisterbach, 
Dialogus  miraculorum  (Strange's  ed.,  Cologne,  1851,  2  vols.,  8vo; 
vol.  II,  pp.  255  and  125). 

66.  Sabatier,  op.  cit.,  p.  192.  His  references  are:  Egbert  von 
Schonau's  Contra  Catharos,  Serm.  I,  cap.  2  (Migne,  Pat.  Lat.,  vol. 
CXCV),  cf.  Heisterbach,  loc.  cit.,  5  :  18;  Luc  de  Tuy's  De  altera 
Vita,  lib.  2  :  9;  3  :  9,  18  (Migne,  Pat.  Lat.,  vol.  CCVIII). 

67.  Inquisit.  in  verit.  Miraculor.  F.  de  Paris,  sec.  1,  as  cited  by 
Newman,  op.  cit.,  p.  90,  note  1.  On  the  Jansenist  miracles  cf.  the 
excellent  criticism  of  A.  Tholuck,  Vermischte  Schriften,  1839,  I,  pp. 
133-148;  he  mentions  the  chief  sources  of  information,  among 
which  cf.  especially  Carre  de  Montgeron,  La  Verite  des  Miracles 
Opcres  par  I  Intercession  de  M.  de  Paris  et  Autres  Appelans,  Cologne, 
1747,  with  the  comments  on  it  by  J.  M.  Charcot  in  The  New  Re- 
view, January,  1893,  vol.  VIII,  pp.  25  ff.,  and  the  comment  on 
Charcot's  use  of  this  book  by  G.  Bertrin,  Lourdes,  E.  T.,  1908,  pp. 
138  ff.  On  the  use  made  of  these  miracles  by  Hume,  see  James  Orr, 
Hume,  p.  215,  who  refers  us  for  the  real  facts  to  Campbell  and 
Leland. 

68.  Cf.  Middleton,  as  cited,  I,  p.  357;  Newman,  as  cited,  p.  45; 
Hastings's  Encyclopaedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics,  vol.  VII,  p.  480. 

69.  The  first  of  the  ten  miracles  which  Montgeron  discusses  at 
large  was  wrought  on  a  young  Spaniard,  who  was  stone  blind  in 
one  eye  and  saw  but  dimly  with  the  other.  Only  the  better  eye 
was  healed,  and  the  famous  oculist  Gendron  told  him  that  he  ought 
to  be  content  with  that,  since  the  restoration  of  the  other  eye,  in 
which  many  parts  were  absolutely  destroyed,  would  require  a  mir- 
acle of  creation  comparable  to  giving  a  cripple  two  new  legs,  and 
no  one  ever  heard  of  such  a  miracle.  Yet  Charlotte  Laborde,  we 
are  told,  who  on  the  certificate  of  two  surgeons  had  no  legs  at  all, 
recovered  a  serviceable  pair  by  one  of  these  Jansenist  miracles. 
Here  is  a  miracle  which  overtops  all  other  miracles — even  that  of 
the  famous  Pierre  de  Rudder  at  Lourdes,  who  only  had  an  old  frac- 
ture of  the  leg  mended.     Compare  pp.  118  ff. 

70.  The  literature  of  the  subject  is  sufficiently  intimated  in  the 
course  of  the  lecture.  The  following  may  be  profitably  consulted: 
E.  Lucius  (ed.  G.  Anrich),  Die  Anfange  des  Heiligcnkidts  in  der 
christlichen  Kirchc,  1904;  H.  Achelis,  "Die  Martyrologien,  ihre  Ge- 


PATRISTIC   AND   MEDLEVAL   MARVELS         257 

schichte  und  ihr  Wert,"  in  the  Abhandlungen  d.  kaiserl.  Gesellschaft 
des  Wissensch.  zu  Gbttingen,  N.  F.  Ill,  1900;  P.  Allard,  Dix  leqons 
sur  le  martyr ez,  1907  (E.  T.  by  L.  Cappadelta,  Ten  Lectures  on  the 
Martyrs);  L.  Leclerq,  Les  Martyrs,  1902-1906;  A.  van  Gennep, 
La  Formation  des  Legendes,  1910;  H.  Delehaye,  Les  Legendes 
Hagiographiqucs,  1905  (E.  T.  by  N.  M.  Crawford,  The  Legends  of 
the  Saints);  H.  Giinter,  Legenden-Studien,  1906,  Die  christliche 
Legende  des  Abendlandes,  1910,  article  "Legends  of  the  Saints"  in 
the  Catholic  Encyclopedia;  E.  von  Dobschiitz,  article  "Legende" 
in  Haupt-Herzog3 ;   G.  H.  Gerould,  Saints'  Legends,  1916. 

Naturally  the  same  infection  from  heathenism  which  produced 
the  Christian  miracles  of  these  ages,  showed  itself  also  among  the 
Jews.  For  the  earliest  period,  see  P.  Fiebig,  Jiidische  Wunder- 
geschichten  des  neutestamentl.  Zeitallers,  191 1  (original  texts  in  same 
author's  Rabbinische  Wunderges.  d.  N.  T.  Zeitallers,  191 1).  S. 
Schechter  {Jewish  Quarterly  Review,  April,  1900,  pp.  431-432) 
writes:  "Again  our  knowledge  of  the  spiritual  history  of  the  Jews 
during  the  first  centuries  of  our  era  might  be  enriched  by  a  chapter 
on  Miracles.  Starting  from  the  principle  that  miracles  can  only  be 
explained  by  more  miracles,  an  attempt  was  made  some  years  ago 
by  a  student  to  draw  up  a  list  of  the  wonder-workings  of  the  Rabbis 
recorded  in  the  Talmud  and  the  Midrashim.  He  applied  himself 
to  the  reading  of  these  works,  but  his  reading  was  only  cursory. 
The  list,  therefore,  is  not  complete.  Still  it  yielded  a  harvest  of 
not  less  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  miracles.  They  cover  all 
classes  of  supernatural  workings  recorded  in  the  Bible,  but  occur 
with  much  greater  frequency."  As  the  Christians  did  not  think 
of  denying  the  reality  of  the  heathen  miracles,  but  had  their  own 
way  of  accounting  for  their  occurrence  (see  the  interesting  discus- 
sion in  Augustine,  City  of  God,  X,  16),  so  the  Jews.  P.  J.  Hershon 
{Genesis  with  a  Talmudic  Commentary,  E.  T.,  p.  284)  quotes  from  the 
Avoda-zarah,  fol.  51,  col.  1,  as  follows:  "Zonan  once  said  to  Rabbi 
Akiva:  Both  I  and  thou  know  that  an  idol  has  nothing  in  it,  and  yet 
we  see  men  who  go  to  it  lame  and  return  sound;  how  dost  thou 
account  for  it?  He  replied:  I  will  tell  thee  a  parable.  There  was 
a  faithful  man  with  whom  his  townspeople  deposited  their  goods, 
without  the  presence  of  witnesses.  One  man  did  so  likewise,  but 
was  careful  to  bring  witnesses  with  him.  Once,  however,  he  de- 
posited something  with  him  when  no  one  else  was  present.  Oh, 
said  his  wife,  after  his  departure,  let  us  keep  that  deposit  for  our- 
selves. What !  replied  the  husband,  because  the  fool  acted  im- 
properly shall  we  forfeit  our  faith?  So  also  when  chastisements 
are  sent  on  men,  they  (the  chastisements)  are  adjured  not  to  leave 


258  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III 

them  before  a  certain  day,  a  certain  hour,  and  then  only  by  a  cer- 
tain medicament.  It  happens  that  the  heathen  man  repairs  to 
the  heathen  temple  at  that  very  time.  The  chastisements  then 
say:  By  right  we  should  not  depart  just  now;  but,  on  reflection, 
they  add:  Because  that  fool  acts  improperly,  shall  we  violate  our 
oath?"  Where  the  Christians  invoked  demons,  Akiva  fell  back 
on  coincidence. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III 

ROMAN   CATHOLIC   MIRACLES 

i.     Mysticism  and  the  Creed,  1914,  p.  ix. 

2.  The  Sacred  Shrine,  191 2,  p.  xi. 

3.  The  sense  of  this  continuity  is  very  strong  among  Romanist 
writers;  e.g.,  R.  H.  Benson,  Lourdes,  1914,  P-  59:  '"These  signs 
shall  follow  them  that  believe,'  He  said  Himself;  and  the  history  of 
the  Catholic  Church  is  an  exact  fulfillment  of  the  words.  It  was 
so,  St.  Augustine  tells  us,  at  the  tombs  of  the  martyrs;  five  hundred 
miracles  were  reported  at  Canterbury  within  a  few  years  of  St. 
Thomas'  martyrdom.  And  now  here  is  Lourdes,  as  it  has  been  for 
fifty  years,  in  this  little  corner  of  France." 

4.  The  same  general  point  of  view  finds  expression  sometimes 
in  non-Romanist  quarters.  For  example,  J.  Arthur  Hill,  The 
Hibbcrt  Journal,  October,  1906,  vol.  V,  p.  118,  writes  as  follows: 
"Christ's  miracles  and  resurrection  were  objective  phenomena, 
and  Christianity  was  based  upon  them.  .  .  .  But  belief  in  Chris- 
tianity has  gradually  crumbled  away  because  there  has  been  no 
continuance  of  well-attested  cognate  facts.  The  Catholic  miracles 
and  ecstasies  make  belief  easier  for  one  section  of  Christianity; 
but  Protestantism — which  cuts  off  miracles  at  the  end  of  the 
Apostolic  Times — has  committed  suicide;  by  making  unique  events 
of  its  basic  phenomena  it  has  made  continued  belief  in  them  im- 
possible." On  this  view  no  man  can  believe  in  miracles  who  has 
not  himself  witnessed  miracles.  Testimony  is  discredited  out  of 
hand;  man  believes  only  what  he  has  seen.  Must  we  not  go 
further  on  this  ground?  Can  a  man  continue  to  believe  in  miracles 
unless  he  continues  to  see  them?  Is  not  memory  itself  a  kind  of 
testimony?  Must  not  there  be  a  continuous  miracle  in  order  to 
support  continuous  faith  ?  We  cannot  thus  chop  up  the  continuity 
of  life,  whether  of  the  individual  or  of  the  race,  in  the  interests 
of  continuous  miracle.  Granted  that  one  or  the  other  must  be 
continuous,  life  or  miracle;  but  both  need  not  be. 


ROMAN   CATHOLIC   MIRACLES  259 

5.  Above,  pp.  17  ff.,  61  ff. 

6.  Romische  Geschichte,  I,  p.  181. 

7.  Wnnderglaube  im  Heidentum  und  in  der  alien  Kirche,  1901, 
p.  101. 

8.  Op.  cit.,  pp.  56-57. 

9.  Loc.  cit. 

10.  Monasticism  and  the  Confessions  of  Augustine,  E.  T.,  p. 
123. 

11.  History  of  Dogma,  E.  T.,  vol.  V,  p.  172,  note  1. 

12.  The  City  of  God,  book  XXI,  chap.  IV  (Post-Nicene  Fathers, 
vol.  II,  p.  458). 

13.  De  cur  a  pro  mortuis  gerenda,  c.  12  :  15  (Migne,  vol.  VI,  pp. 
602  f.). 

14.  Dialog.,  IV,  36  (Migne,  vol.  Ill,  p.  384  A). 

15.  Philopseudes,  25  (The  Works  of  Lucian  of  Samosata,  trans- 
lated by  H.  W.  Fowler  and  F.  G.  Fowler,  vol.  Ill,  1905,  p.  244). 

16.  Die  christliche  Legende  des  Abendlandes,  1910,  p.  111. 

17.  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  vol.  X,  191 1,  p.  130. 

18.  Les  Legendes  Hagiographiques,  1905,  p.  210. 

19.  Eellenistische  W under erzahlun gen,  1906,  p.  6. 

20.  Eusebius,  The  Preparation  for  the  Gospel,  11  :  37  (E.  T.  by 
E.  H.  Gifford,  vol.  Ill,  pp.  610  f.),  quotes  it  from  Plutarch's  treatise 
On  the  Soul.  Plutarch  is  speaking  of  his  friend  Antyllus.  He 
writes:  "For  he  was  ill  not  long  ago,  and  the  physician  thought 
that  he  could  not  live;  but  having  recovered  a  little  from  a  slight 
collapse,  though  he  neither  did  nor  said  anything  else  showing  de- 
rangement, he  declared  that  he  had  died  and  had  been  set  free 
again,  and  was  not  going  to  die  at  all  of  that  present  illness,  but  that 
those  who  had  carried  him  away  were  seriously  reproved  by  their 
Lord;  for,  having  been  sent  for  Nicandas,  they  had  brought  him 
back  instead  of  the  other.  Now,  Nicandas  was  a  shoe-maker,  be- 
sides being  one  of  those  who  frequent  the  palustrse,  and  familiar 
and  well-known  to  many.  Wherefore  the  young  men  used  to  come 
and  mock  him,  as  having  run  away  from  his  fate,  and  as  having 
bribed  the  officers  sent  from  the  other  world.  It  was  evident,  how- 
ever, that  he  was  himself  at  first  a  little  disturbed  and  disquieted; 
and  at  last  he  was  attacked  by  a  fever  and  died  suddenly  the  third 
day.  But  this  Antyllus  came  to  life  again,  and  is  alive  and  well, 
and  one  of  our  most  agreeable  friends." 

21.  Psyche2,  1898,  vol.  II,  p.  364,  note. 

22.  Festschrift  Theodor  Gomperz  dargebracht,  usw.,  1902. 

23.  Loc.  cit. 

23a.    Erasmus  has  some  very  sensible  remarks  on  the  matter 


260  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III 

(Epistle  475)  which  J.  A.  Froude  (Life  and  Letters  of  Erasmus,  1894, 
p.  301)  reproduces  in  a  condensed  form  thus:  "This  Dialogue 
[Lucian's  Philopseudes\  teaches  us  the  folly  of  superstition,  which 
creeps  in  under  the  name  of  religion.  When  lies  are  told  us  Lucian 
bids  us  not  disturb  ourselves,  however  complete  the  authority 
which  may  be  produced  for  them.  Even  Augustine,  an  honest 
old  man  and  a  lover  of  truth,  can  repeat  a  tale  as  authentic  which 
Lucian  had  ridiculed  under  other  names  so  many  years  before 
Augustine  was  born.  What  wonder,  therefore,  that  fools  can  be 
found  to  listen  to  the  legends  of  the  saints  or  to  stories  about  hell, 
such  as  frighten  cowards  or  old  women.  There  is  not  a  martyr, 
there  is  not  a  virgin,  whose  biographies  have  not  been  disfigured 
by  these  monstrous  absurdities.  Augustine  says  that  lies  when 
exposed  always  injure  the  truth.  One  might  fancy  they  were  in- 
vented by  knaves  or  unbelievers  to  destroy  the  credibility  of  Chris- 
tianity itself."  Miracles,  according  to  Erasmus,  did  not  happen 
in  his  time — though  they  were  said  to  happen.  "I  have  spoken 
of  miracles,"  he  writes  (Froude,  p.  351).  "The  Christian  religion 
nowadays  does  not  require  miracles,  and  there  are  none;  but  you 
know  that  lying  stories  are  set  about  by  crafty  knaves."  He  de- 
scribes with  his  biting  satire  what  happened  (and  did  not  happen) 
when  the  Protestants  took  over  Basle.  "Smiths  and  carpenters 
were  sent  to  remove  the  images  from  the  churches.  The  roods  and 
the  unfortunate  saints  were  cruelly  handled.  Strange  that  none  of 
them  worked  a  miracle  to  avenge  their  dignity,  when  before  they 
had  worked  so  many  at  the  slightest  provocation"  (p.  359).  "No 
blood  was  shed;  but  there  was  a  cruel  assault  on  altars,  images, 
and  pictures.  We  are  told  that  St.  Francis  used  to  resent  light 
remarks  about  his  five  wounds,  and  several  other  saints  are  said 
to  have  shown  displeasure  on  similar  occasions.  It  was  strange 
that  at  Basle  not  a  saint  stirred  a  finger.  I  am  not  so  much  sur- 
prised at  the  patience  of  Christ  and  the  Virgin  Mary"  (p.  360). 
As  to  relics  and  relic-worship:  "What  would  Jerome  say  could  he 
see  the  Virgin's  milk  exhibit£d  for  money;  with  as  much  honor 
paid  to  it  as  to  the  consecrated  body  of  Christ;  the  miraculous  oil; 
the  portions  of  the  true  cross,  enough  if  they  were  collected  to  freight 
a  large  ship?  Here  we  have  the  head  of  St.  Francis,  there  our 
Lady's  petticoat  or  St.  Anne's  cowl,  or  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury's 
shoes;  not  presented  as  innocent  aids  to  religion,  but  as  the  sub- 
stance of  religion  itself — and  all  through  the  avarice  of  priests  and 
the  hypocrisy  of  monks  playing  on  the  credulity  of  the  people. 
Even  bishops  play  their  parts  in  these  fantastic  shows,  and  approve 
and  dwell  on  them  in  their  rescripts"  (pp.  121  f.). 


ROMAN   CATHOLIC   MIRACLES  261 

24.  Legenden-Studien,  1906;  Die  christliche  Legende  des  Abend- 
landes,  19 10. 

25.  Die  christliche  Legende,  usw.,  p.  69. 

26.  Pp.  3,  4- 

27.  P.  117. 

28.  Op.  cit.,  p.  8;  cf.  Legenden-Studien,  p.  70. 

29.  .Die  christliche  Legende,  usw.,  p.  118. 

30.  On  the  miracles,  especially  of  healing,  of  classical  antiquity, 
see  E.  Thraner,  art.,  "Health  and  Gods  of  Healing,"  in  Hastings's 
ERE,  vol.  VI,  pp.  540-566;  Otto  Weinreich,  Antike  Heilungs- 
wunder,  1909;  R.  Lembert,  Die  W under glaube  der  Romer  und  Grie- 
chen,  1905;  and  Antike  W under kur en,  191 1;  G.  von  Rittersheim, 
Der  medizin.  W under glauben  und  die  Incubation  im  Altertum,  1878; 
L.  Deubner,  De  Incubatione,  1900;  M.  Hamilton,  Incubation,  1906. 
On  the  transference  of  the  heathen  customs  to  Christianity,  see 
Deubner  and  Hamilton,  and  especially  E.  Lucius,  Die  Anfdnge  des 
Heiligenkults  in  der  christliche  Kirche,  1904;  Th.  Trede,  Wunder- 
glaube  im  Heidentutn  und  in  der  alien  Kirche,  1901,  and  Das  Heiden- 
tum  in  der  Romishen  Kirche,  4  vols.,  1889-1891;  P.  Saintyves,  Les 
Saints  successeurs  des  Dieux,  1907.  With  respect  to  the  mediaeval 
miracles,  see  especially  P.  Toldo  of  Turin,  who  began  in  1901  in  the 
Studien  der  vergleichenden  Liter aturgeschichte  a  "scientific  classifica- 
tion" of  the  mediaeval  miracles,  in  a  series  of  articles  entitled, 
"Lives  and  Miracles  of  the  Saints  in  the  Middle  Ages";  see  also 
Koch's  Zeitschrift  fur  vergleichende  Liter  aturgeschichte,  vol.  XIV 
(1901),  pp.  267  ff.,  where  Toldo  prints  the  Introduction  to  these 
studies.  The  bizarre  character  of  these  miracles  is  fairly  illustrated 
by  a  brief  but  brightly  written  review  of  them  in  R.  A.  Vaughan's 
Hours  with  the  Mystics,6  1903,  vol.  II,  pp.  218-222. 

31.  Heinrich  Giinter,  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  vol.  X,  1911, 
p.  229,  singles  the  stigmata  out  from  other  miraculous  manifesta- 
tions as  "an  especially  Christian  manifestation";  all  the  rest  have 
heathen  parallels. 

3a,  Consult,  however,  A.  M.  Koniger,  in  Schiele  and  Zschar- 
nack's  Die  Religion  in  Geschichte  und  Gegenwart,  vol.  V,  1913,  col. 
924:  "In  the  absolute  sense  in  which  it  has  been  until  recently 
thought  to  be  such,  Francis  of  Assisi  does  not  begin  the  long  list. 
It  is,  on  the  contrary,  possible  to  show  that  at  the  least  the  idea 
of  imitating  the  stigmata,  as  a  consequence  of  longing  after  the 
sufferings  of  the  Lord,  was  active  for  the  period  of  the  opening 
thirteenth  century  when  not  only  was  reverence  for  the  sufferings 
of  Christ  fostered  by  the  crusades,  but  more  still  self-mortifications 
of  all  sorts  were  set  on  foot  by  the  growing  call  to  repentance  and 


262  NOTES   TO  LECTURE  III 

amendment.  Consult  the  self-mutilations  of  the  Belgian  Beguine 
Marie  of  Oignies  (f  12 13),  of  the  religious  fanatic  condemned  by 
the  Oxford  Synod  of  1222,  further  of  the  Marquis  Robert  of  Mont- 
ferrand,   about   1226,  of  the  Dutch  hermit  Dodon  von  Hasha 

(ti23i)." 

Francis  was  not  only  the  first  of  the  stigmatics  in  both  time  and 
importance,  but  presented  the  stigmata  in  a  form  which  has  re- 
mained peculiar  to  himself.  The  contemporary  accounts  agree  in 
describing  the  marks  on  his  hands  and  feet  as  blackish,  fleshy  ex- 
crescences, recalling  in  form  and  color  the  nails  with  which  the 
hands  and  feet  of  Jesus  were  pierced.  Only  the  mark  in  the  side 
was  a  wound,  whence  at  times  exuded  a  little  blood.  No  bloody 
exudation  took  place  except  at  the  side.  (Cf.  Paul  Sabatier,  Life 
of  Francis  of  Assisi,  E.  T.,  1894,  p.  296,  note,  and  p.  435).  Fran- 
cis's somatization  consisted,  then,  not  of  five  bleeding  wounds 
but  of  the  imitation  of  the  four  nails  and  the  spear  thrust  in  the 
side.  The  description  given  of  them  by  Brother  Elias  (Sabatier, 
p.  436)  in  his  letters  as  Vicar  of  the  Order  to  the  brothers,  sent  out 
after  Francis's  death,  describes  them  as  follows:  "For  (or  Not)  a 
long  time  before  his  death  our  Brother  and  Father  appeared  as 
crucified,  having  in  his  body  five  wounds,  which  are  truly  the  stig- 
mata of  Christ,  for  his  hands  and  his  feet  bore  marks  as  of  nails 
without  and  within,  forming  a  sort  of  scars;  while  at  the  side  he 
was  as  if  pierced  with  a  lance,  and  often  a  little  blood  oozed  from 
it."  Joseph  von  Gorres,  Die  christliche  Mystik,  ed.  of  1836,  vol. 
II,  p.  422,  puts  together  a  very  detailed  description  of  the  wounds 
on  the  hands  and  the  feet:  "The  wounds  of  notable  extent  opened 
in  the  centre  of  the  extremities.  In  the  middle  of  them  had  grown 
out  of  the  flesh  and  cellular  tissue  nails  like  iron;  black,  hard, 
fixed,  with  heads  above,  below  pointed  and  as  if  clinched,  so  that 
a  finger  could  be  inserted  between  them  and  the  skin.  They  were 
movable  from  side  to  side,  and  if  drawn  out  to  one  side,  were  cor- 
respondingly drawn  in  on  the  other  but  could  not  be  extracted; 
as  St.  Clara  discovered  when  she  tried  to  extract  them  after  his 
death,  and  could  not  do  it.  The  fingers  remained,  moreover, 
flexible  as  before,  and  the  hands  performed  their  service;  neither 
did  the  feet  fail,  although  walking  had  become  more  difficult  to 
him,  and  he  therefore  rode  thereafter  in  his  journeying  through 
the  neighborhood."  A.  Tholuck,  Vermischte  Schriften,  1839,  I,  pp. 
105  f.,  points  out  the  defects  in  the  testimony:  "In  the  case  of  all 
other  saints  the  legend  speaks  only  of  wound  scars,  and  the  por- 
traits of  Francis  present  him  only  with  the  scars;  the  old  reporters 
nevertheless  describe  them  in  a  peculiar  way  as  if  there  had  grown 


ROMAN   CATHOLIC   MIRACLES  263 

nails  of  flesh,  with  the  color  of  fresh  iron  and  with  clinched  points. 
Nevertheless  perfect  clearness  is  lacking  in  the  reports.  The  report 
of  the  ires  socii  says:  nails  of  flesh  were  seen  et  ferri  quoque  nigre- 
dinem.  Celano  says:  Non  clavorum  quidem  punduras,  sed  ipsos 
clavos  in  eis  impositos,  ex  ferri  recenti  nigredine;  the  last  words  yield 
no  sense,  and  the  editors  conjecture:  ex  ferri  recentis  nigredinem. 
The  matter  is  spoken  of  still  less  clearly  in  a  letter  of  Francis's  im- 
mediate successor  in  the  generalship  of  the  Minorites  (in  Wadding, 
ad  annum  1226,  no.  45).  Here  we  read:  Nam  manus  ejus  et  pedes, 
quasi  punduras  davorum  habuerunt  ex  utraque  parte  confixas,  reser- 
vantes  cicatrices,  et  clavorum  nigredinem  ostendentes.  According  to 
this  also  nails  were  present."  For  recent  discussions  see  the  works 
mentioned  at  the  close  of  the  article  on  the  "Stigmatics"  in  Schiele 
and  Zscharnack,  as  cited,  pp.  433-443. 

33.  Gorres,  as  cited,  pp.  426-428:  cf.  Margaret  Roberts,  Saint 
Catherine  of  Sienna  and  Her  Times2,  1907,  p.  103:  "Catherine  spent 
long  hours  in  the  Church  of  St.  Cristina,  and  it  was  there  that  to 
her  inner  consciousness  she  received  the  stigmata,  invisible  to 
human  eyes,  but  to  her  awfully  real."  On  her  bloody  sweat  and 
weeping  with  bloody  tears,  see  Augusta  T.  Drane,  The  History  of 
St.  Catherine  of  Siena3,  1899,  vol.  I,  p.  52. 

34.  Germano  di  Stanislao,  Gemma  Galgati,  German  version  by 
P.  Leo  Schlegel,  1913;  W.  F.  Ludwig,  Gemma  Galgati,  eine  Studie 
aus  jiingste  Zeit,  1912.  The  most  well-known  instance  of  stigma- 
tization  of  the  later  years  of  the  nineteenth  cejitury  was  probably 
Louise  Lateau.  Her  case  is  discussed  by  William  A.  Hammond, 
Spiritualism  and  Allied  Causes  and  Conditions  of  Nervous  Derange- 
ment, 1876,  pp.  350-362;  on  page  350  an  extended  bibliography  is 
given  which  may  be  supplemented  from  that  at  the  end  of  the 
article,  "Stigmatization,"  in  the  New  Schaff-Herzog  Encyclopedia 
of  Religious  Knowledge,  vol.  XI,  pp.  96-97.  A.  Rohling's  Louise 
Lateau,  nach  authentischen  medizinischen  und  theologischen  Docu- 
menten,  1874,  was  translated  and  printed  in  The  Catholic  Review, 
and  afterward  in  a  pamphlet  entitled  Louise  Lateau,  Her  Stigmas 
and  Ecstasy,  New  York,  Hickey  &  Co.,  1891.  The  following  account 
is  drawn  from  this  pamphlet. 

Louise  Lateau  was  born  a  peasant  girl,  in  a  Belgian  village,  on 
the  30th  of  January,  1850.  Her  early  life  was  passed  in  poverty 
and  sickness.  In  the  spring  of  1867  she  fell  into  a  violent  ill- 
ness, and  remained  in  a  dying  condition  for  a  year,  suffering  from 
abscesses  and  hemorrhages,  until  she  was  miraculously  cured, 
arising  at  once  from  her  bed,  on  the  20th  of  April,  1868.  "Three 
days  later,"  says  Rohling,  "Louise  received  the  stigmas  of  our 


264  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III 

Saviour,  Jesus  Christ"  (p.  8).     Here  is  the  account  given  by  Doctor 
Rohling: 

"We  have  seen  that  she  was  suddenly  restored  to  health  on  the 
20  April,  1868.  During  the  two  following  days  she  continued  per- 
fectly well,  the  thought  of  receiving  the  stigmas  of  the  Passion 
never  of  course  entering  her  mind.  Indeed  at  that  time,  she  had 
never  even  heard  of  God's  having  bestowed  this  wonderful  favor 
either  on  St.  Francis,  or  upon  any  other  of  his  faithful  servants. 
On  the  24th  of  April,  however,  she  experienced  a  return  of  those 
excruciating  pains,  from  which  she  had  been  enduring  a  martyr- 
dom of  suffering  since  the  beginning  of  the  preceding  year.  And 
on  the  same  day,  which  was  Friday,  the  first  trace  of  the  stigmas 
appeared.  On  that  occasion,  however,  blood  flowed  only  from  the 
left  side.  Next  day  the  bleeding  had  entirely  ceased,  and  all  the 
pain  had  disappeared.  Louise,  thinking  that  it  was  some  transient 
form  of  her  late  illness,  remained  silent  about  what  had  occurred. 
But  on  the  following  Friday,  the  1st  of  May,  the  stigmas  again 
appeared;  and  the  blood  now  flowed  not  only  from  the  side,  as  in 
the  previous  week,  but  also  from  the  upper  surface  of  both  feet. 
Filled  with  anxiety  and  embarrassment,  Louise  still  kept  the  matter 
a  profound  secret,  speaking  of  it  only  to  her  confessor  .  .  .  (who) 
.  .  .  made  nothing  of  what  had  occurred.  .  .  .  On  the  next 
Friday,  the  8th  of  May,  blood  came  as  in  the  previous  weeks,  and, 
in  addition,  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  it  began  to  flow 
copiously  from  the  palms  and  backs  of  both  hands."  ...  "  Since 
then  the  bleeding  is  accustomed  to  return  on  Fridays."  "On  the 
25th  September,  1868,  blood  flowed  for  the  first  time  from  the 
forehead  and  from  a  number  of  points  around  the  head — a  striking 
memorial  of  our  Lord's  crown  of  thorns — and  this  has  also  occurred 
regularly  ever  since.  On  the  26th  April,  1873,  an  additional  wound 
of  large  dimensions  appeared  on  Louise's  right  shoulder,  such  as 
our  Lord  received  in  carrying  the  cross  to  Calvary.  The  blood 
usually  begins  to  flow  from  the  stigmas  about  midnight  on  Thurs- 
days; occasionally  the  bleeding  from  the  left  side  does  not  begin 
until  somewhat  later.  Sometimes  blood  flows  only  from  either 
the  upper  or  lower  surface  of  the  feet,  and  from  either  the  palms  or 
backs  of  the  hands;  but  frequently  the  bleeding  takes  place  from 
both.  Nor  is  the  time  uniform,  during  which  the  bleeding  con- 
tinues .  .  .  but  invariably  the  blood  ceases  to  flow  before  mid- 
night Friday.  The  first  symptom  of  the  commencement  of  the 
bleeding  is  the  formation  of  blisters  on  the  hands  and  feet.  .  .  . 
When  they  are  fully  developed,  the  blisters  burst,  the  watery  liquid 
passes  off,  and  blood  immediately  begins  to  flow  from  the  true  skin 


ROMAN  CATHOLIC  MIRACLES  265 

beneath.  .  .  .  During  the  rest  of  the  week,  the  position  of  the 
stigmas  can  be  discerned  by  a  reddish  tinge,  and  a  glassy  appear- 
ance of  the  skin,  the  epidermis  is  intact,  exhibiting  no  trace  of  wound 
or  scar,  and  beneath  it  with  the  aid  of  a  good  lens  (with  a  magnify- 
ing power  of  20)  the  skin  may  be  observed  in  its  normal  condition. 
.  .  .  During  the  ecstasy  Louise  has  no  consciousness  of  material 
occurrences  around  her.  .  .  .  The  stigmas  are  the  seat  of  acute 
pain." 

35.  Les  Stigmatisees,  Louise  Lateau,  etc.,  Paris,  1873;  La  So- 
matization, Vecstasie  divine,  et  les  miracles  de  Lourdes,  Paris,  1894. 
We  are  drawing,  however,  directly  from  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia, 
vol.  XIV,  p.  294.  Two  American  cases  are  described  incidentally 
in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  vol.  VII 
(1891-1892),  pp.  341  and  345. 

36.  Migne,  Dictionnaire  des  Propheties  et  des  Miracles,  p.  1069. 

37.  Op.  cit.,  pp.  1068  f.;  cf.  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  May  1, 
1907,  p.  207. 

38.  G.  Dumas,  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  May  1,  1907,  p.  207, 
quoting  Ribadeneira,  Vie  d'Ignace  de  Loyola,  book  V,  chap.  x. 

39.  Pp.  1066  ff. 

40.  P.  1070. 

41.  Pp.  1080  f. 

42.  A.  Poulain,  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  vol.  XIV,  p.  295: 
"It  seems  historically  certain  that  ecstatics  alone  have  the  stig- 
mata." 

43.  It  is  the  judgment  of  a  sympathetic  critic  that  "trances, 
losses  of  consciousness,  automatisms,  visions  of  lights,  audition  of 
voices,  'stigmata,'  and  such  like  experiences,  are  evidences  of  hys- 
teria, and  they  are  not  in  themselves  evidences  of  divine  influence 
or  of  divine  presence." — Rufus  M.  Jones,  Studies  in  Mystical  Re- 
ligion, 1909,  p.  xxviii.  Compare  what  he  says  more  at  large,  when 
speaking  of  Francis  of  Assisi  (p.  165):  "The  modern  interpreter, 
unlike  the  mediaeval  disciple,  finds  this  event,  if  it  is  admitted,  a 
point  of  weakness  rather  than  a  point  of  strength.  Instead  of 
proving  to  be  the  marks  of  a  saint,  the  stigmata  are  the  marks  of 
emotional  and  physical  abnormality."  In  a  like  spirit,  Baron  von 
Hiigel,  The  Mystical  Element  of  Religion,  vol.  II,  p.  42,  declares 
generally  that  "the  downright  ecstatics  and  hearers  of  voices  and 
seers  of  visions  have  all,  wherever  we  are  able  to  trace  their  tem- 
peramental and  normal  constitution  and  history,  possessed  and 
developed  a  definitely  peculiar  psycho-physical  organization."  On 
the  Stigmata  and  Stigmatics,  see  especially  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  Per- 
sonality, Human  and  Divine,  vol.  I,  pp.  492  ff. 


266  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III 

44.  Die  ckrislliche  Mystik,  new  ed.,  1836,  vol.  II,  pp.  407-468: 
"Die  Ecstase  im  unterem  Leben,  und  die  durch  sie  gewirkte  Trans- 
formation der  Leiblichkeit."  English  translation  of  this  section 
under  the  title  of  The  Stigmata:  A  History  of  Various  Cases,  Lon- 
don, 1883. 

45.  A.  M.  Koniger,  in  Schiele  and  Zscharnack,  as  cited,  col.  924: 
"Their  bearers  are  predominantly  women  and  simple  people.  In 
the  immaturity  of  their  understanding  they  have  not  yet  reached 
stability.  .  .  ." 

46.  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  vol.  XIV,  p.  294.  The  italics 
are  ours. 

47.  Pp.  205  ff. 

48.  Gorres,  op.  cit.,  vol.  II,  p.  189. 

49.  J.  K.  Huysmans,  Sainte  Lydwine,  p.  101. 

50.  We  are  reminded  by  Mrs.  E.  Herman,  however  (The  Mean- 
ing and  Value  of  Mysticism,  1915,  p.  159),  that  in  one  element  of 
the  faith  of  those  "moderns"  whom  she  represents,  there  is  a  re- 
turn to  this  desire  to  help  Christ  save  the  world.  Commenting  on 
some  remarks  of  Angela  de  Foligno,  she  says:  "To  those  unac- 
quainted with  mediaeval  religious  literature  this  seems  curiously 
modern  in  its  implied  insistence  upon  our  obligation  to  ask  a  hum- 
ble share  in  the  atoning  suffering,  instead  of  acquiescing  in  a  doc- 
trine which  would  make  a  passive  acceptance  of  Christ's  sufferings 
on  our  behalf  sufficient  for  the  remission  of  sins."  No  sharing  in 
Christ's  atoning  sufferings  can  be  described  as  humble.  It  is  not 
the  "acceptance  of  Christ's  sufferings"  which  is  represented  by  the 
Scriptures  and  understood  from  them  by  evangelicals  as  "sufficient 
for  the  remission  of  sins."  It  is  Christ's  sufferings  themselves 
which  are  all-sufficient,  and  the  trail  of  the  serpent  is  seen  in  any 
suggestions  that  they  need  or  admit  of  supplementing. 

51.  For  example,  A.  Poulain,  as  cited;  cf.  A.  M.  Koniger,  as 
cited:  "The  analogous  cases  of  suggestion  from  without  (local 
congestion  of  blood,  slight  blood-sweating,  formation  of  blisters, 
and  marks  of  burning)  lie  so  far  from  the  real  stigmata,  connected 
with  lesion  of  the  walls  of  the  blood  vessels  (hemorrhages),  that 
medical  science  knows  as  yet  nothing  else  to  do  but  to  class  this 
among  the  'obscure  neuropathic  bleedings.'" 

52.  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  ed.  1908,  vol.  II,  p.  612. 
Compare  the  statement  quoted  by  A.  T.  Schofield,  The  Force  of 
Mind,  1908,  pp.  61  f.,  from  Professor  Barrett,  of  Trinity  College, 
Dublin,  Humanitarian,  1905:  "It  is  not  so  well  known  but  it  is 
nevertheless  a  fact,  that  utterly  startling  physiological  changes  can 
be  produced  in  a  hypnotized  subject  merely  by  conscious  or  uncon- 


ROMAN   CATHOLIC   MIRACLES  267 

scious  mental  suggestion.  Thus  a  red  scar  or  a  painful  burn,  or 
even  a  figure  of  definite  shape,  such  as  a  cross  or  an  initial,  can  be 
caused  to  appear  on  the  body  of  the  entranced  subject  solely 
through  suggesting  the  idea.  By  creating  some  local  disturbance 
of  the  blood-vessels  in  the  skin,  the  unconscious  self  has  done 
what  it  would  be  impossible  for  the  conscious  self  to  perform. 
And  so  in  the  well-attested  cases  of  stigmata,  where  a  close  re- 
semblance to  the  wounds  on  the  body  of  the  crucified  Saviour  ap- 
pears on  the  body  of  the  ecstatic.  This  is  a  case  of  unconscious 
^//-suggestion,  arising  from  the  intent  and  adoring  gaze  of  the 
ecstatic  upon  the  bleeding  figure  on  the  crucifix.  With  the  abey- 
ance of  the  conscious  self  the  hidden  powers  emerge,  whilst  the 
trance  and  mimicry  of  the  wounds  are  strictly  parallel  to  the  ex- 
perimental cases  previously  referred  to." 

53.  These  cases,  with  others  of  the  same  kind,  are  cited  by  F. 
W.  A.  Myers,  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  vol. 
VII  (1891-1892),  pp.  337ff.,  who  introduces  them  with  the  following 
remarks:  "The  subliminal  consciousness,  it  will  be  seen,  was  able 
to  turn  out  to  order  the  most  complicated  novelty  in  the  way  of 
hysterical  freaks  of  circulation.  Let  us  turn  to  an  equally  marked 
disturbance  of  the  inflammatory  type,  the  production  namely,  of 
suppurating  blisters  by  a  word  of  command.  This  phenomenon 
has  a  peculiar  interest,  since,  from  the  accident  of  a  strong  emo- 
tional association  with  the  idea  of  the  stigmata  in  the  hands  and 
feet,  this  special  organic  effect  has  been  anticipated  by  the  intro- 
verted broodings  of  a  line  of  mystics  from  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  to 
Louise  Lateau."  Cf.  the  similar  cases  cited  by  G.  Dumas,  as  cited, 
pp.  215  ft*. 

54.  Myers,  as  cited,  p.  333. 

55.  Letter  to  Thomas  de  Gardo,  a  Florentine  physician,  printed 
in  the  Eighth  Book  of  his  Correspondence — as  cited  by  Dumas,  as 
cited,  p.  213. 

56.  Traiti  de  V Amour  de  Dieu.  Book  IV,  chap,  xv  (E.  T.  in 
Methuen's  "Library  of  Devotion,"  On  the  Love  of  God,  1902,  p.  196). 
Cf.  Dumas,  as  cited,  who,  however,  quotes  more  at  large,  including 
certain  phrases  (not  found  in  the  E.  T.)  which  withdraw  somewhat 
from  the  purity  of  the  naturalistic  explanation. 

57.  The  literature  of  Stigmatization  is  very  large  and  varied; 
a  guide  to  it  may  be  found  in  the  bibliographies  attached  to  the 
appropriate  articles  in  Herzog-Hauck,  the  New  Schaff-Herzog, 
Schiele  and  Zscharnack  and  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia.  The  essay 
by  Dumas  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  for  May  1,  1907,  is  excep- 
tionally instructive.    With  it  may  be  consulted  the  older  discus- 


268  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III 

sions  by  A.  Maury,  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Monies,  1854,  vol.  IV, 
and  in  the  Annates  Medico-Psychologiques  (edited  by  Baillarger, 
Cerise,  and  Longet),  1855;  and  the  more  recent  studies  by  R. 
Virchow,  "Ueber  Wunder  und  Medizin,"  in  the  Deutsche  Zeitschrijt 
fur  practische  Medizin,  1872,  pp.  335-339;  Paul  Janet,  "Une  Ecsta- 
tique,"  in  the  Bulletin  de  I  Institute  psychologique  for  July,  1901, 
and  The  Mental  State  of  Hystericals  :  A  Study  of  Mental  Stigmata, 
New  York,  1901;  and  Maurice  Apte,  Les  Stigmatises,  1903;  of. 
also  W.  A.  Hammond,  Spiritualism  and  Allied  Causes  and  Condi- 
tions of  Nervous  Derangement,  1876,  pp.  329-362,  and  the  short 
note  in  W.  B.  Carpenter,  Principles  of  Mental  Physiology,  1874,  pp. 
689-690.  No  general  description  is  better  than  Gorres's,  as  cited; 
and  no  general  discussion  supersedes  Tholuck's,  as  cited.  O.  Stoll, 
Suggestion  und  Hypnotismus  in  der  Volker-psychologie2,  1904,  pp. 
520  ff.,  is  chiefly  useful  for  the  setting  in  which  the  subject  is 
placed. 

58.  Les  Legendes  Hagiographiques,  1905,  p.  187.  Cf.  what  is 
said  by  G.  H.  Gerould,  Saints'  Legends,  1916,  p.  42. 

59.  L.  Deubner,  De  Incubatione :  "The  religion  of  Christians 
had  and  has  its  own  demi-gods  and  heroes;  that  is  to  say,  its  saints 
and  martyrs";  G.  Wobbermin,  Religions geschichtliche  Studien,  1896, 
p.  18:  "The  saints  of  the  Christian  Churches,  and  especially  those 
of  the  Greek  Church,  present  a  straightforward  development  of 
the  Greek  hero-cult.  The  saints  are  the  heroes  of  the  Ancients." 
Cf.  P.  Saintyves,  Les  Saints  successeurs  des  Dieux,  1907,  and  es- 
pecially Lucius,  as  cited;  also  M.  Hamilton,  as  cited. 

60.  Cf.  Friedrich  Pfister,  Der  Reliquienkult  im  Altertum,  1902, 
pp.  429  ff.;  E.  Lucius,  Die  Anfdnge  des  Heiligenkulls  in  der  christ- 
liche  Kirche,  1904. 

61.  Cf.  the  account  by  Pfister,  as  cited,  p.  323,  and  especially 
43off. 

62.  Cf.  Saintyves,  as  cited,  pp.  33  ff.  We  are  told  that  many 
of  the  bones  of  the  eleven  thousand  virgin  martyrs  displayed  at 
the  Church  of  St.  Ursula  at  Cologne  are  bones  of  men  (A.  D.  White, 
Warfare,  etc.,  vol.  II,  p.  29). 

63.  A.  D.  White  records  that  Frank  Buckland  noted  that  the 
relics  of  St.  Rosalia  at  Palermo  are  really  the  bones  of  a  goat  (Gor- 
don's Life  of  Buckland,  pp.  94-96) ;  and  yet  they  cure  diseases  and 
ward  off  epidemics. 

64.  Harbey,  Supplement  aux  Acta  Sanctorum,  vol.  I,  1899,  p. 
203  (cited  by  Gunter).     Cf.  in  general  Saintyves,  as  cited,  pp.  44  ff. 

65.  H.  Gunter,  Legenden-Studien,  1906,  p.  109,  note  6,  citing 
the  Vita  S.  Maximini,  c.  9  (Scriptores  rerum  Merov.,  Ill,  78). 


ROMAN   CATHOLIC   MIRACLES  269 

66.  Pausanias,  III,  16,  i  (Pfister,  p.  325);  also  Delehaye,  p. 
186,  with  references  given  there. 

67.  Henri  Etienne,  Apologie  pour  Herodote,  ou  Traite  de  la  Con- 
formity des  Merveilles  anciennes  avec  les  modernes,  ed.  le  Duchat, 
1735,  chaps,  xxix-xxvhi,  as  cited  by  P.  Saintyves,  as  cited,  p.  46, 
who  may  be  consulted  (pp.  44-48)  on  the  general  subject. 

68.  Cf.  Paul  Parfait,  La  Foire  aux  Reliques,  pp.  137-138. 

69.  On  Mary's  milk,  see  the  whole  chapter  on  "Le  Saint  Lait 
d'Evron,"  in  Paul  Parfait,  as  cited,  pp.  135-144.  On  what  may 
lie  in  the  background  of  this  whole  series  of  legends,  see  article 
"Milk,"  in  Hastings's  ERE,  vol.  VIII,  pp.  633-637. 

70.  The  Sacred  Shrine,  1912,  p.  363. 

71.  These  words  are  Mechthild's;  and  Hirn  adds:  "The  idea 
that  the  Madonna  gives  milk  to  all  believers  appears  finely  in  a 
poem  in  the  Swedish  collection  of  Latin  hymns,  Pice  Cantiones,  p. 
161: 

'  Super  vinum  et  unguentum 
the  mamme  dant  fomentum, 
fove,  lacta  parvulos.'" 

72.  P.  365. 

73.  He  gives  a  series  of  references  to  instances. 

74.  Deutsche  Schriften,  I,  p.  74. 

75.  Acta  Sanctorum,  38,  pp.  207-208. 

76.  Legenden-Studien,  1906,  pp.  165  f.  Compare  Die  christ- 
liche  Legende  des  Abendlandes,  1910,  p.  43:  "That  the  legend  [of 
Mary]  praises  the  Mother  of  Pity  also  as  the  succorer  of  the  sick 
is  a  matter  of  course.  But  the  mysticism  of  the  Mary-legend 
brought  a  new  means  of  healing,  in  that  it  makes  Mary  give  her 
breast  to  the  sick."  Cf.  the  curious  details  on  p.  85.  In  the  notes 
accompanying  the  passage  quoted  from  the  Legenden-Studien, 
Giinter  shows  how  wide-spread  and  how  full  of  variants  such 
legends  were.  In  one  MS.  the  motive  is  varied  in  a  threefold  way: 
a  cleric  in  his  illness  had  bitten  off  his  tongue  and  lips,  and  was 
suddenly  healed  by  Mary's  milk;  a  monk  thought  already  dead 
was  healed;  another  monk  had  his  experience  only  in  a  dream,  but 
with  the  same  effect.  Noting  that  the  milk  with  which  Fulbert, 
bishop  of  Chartres,  was  sprinkled  and  healed,  is  said  in  one  MS.  to 
have  been  gathered  up  and  saved  as  a  relic,  Gtinter  infers  that  the 
milk-relics  date  from  this  epoch.  This  is  how  the  story  of  Ful- 
bert is  told  in  Sablon,  Histoire  et  Description  de  la  Cathedrale  de 
Chartres :  "St.  Fulbert,  Bishop  and  Restorer  of  this  Church,  hav- 
ing been  visited  by  God  with  an  incurable  fire  which  parched  him 
and  consumed  his  tongue,  and  seized  with  an  insupportable  pain 


270  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III 

which  permitted  him  no  rest  through  the  night,  saw  as  it  were  a 
noble  lady  who  commanded  him  to  open  his  mouth,  and  when  he 
had  obeyed  her  she  at  once  ejected  from  her  sacred  breasts  a  flood 
of  celestial  and  savory  milk  which  quenched  the  fire  at  once  and 
made  his  tongue  more  well  than  ever.  Some  drops  had  fallen  on 
his  cheeks,  and  these  were  afterwards  put  into  a  vial  and  kept  in 
the  treasury." 

77.  Giinter,  Legenden-Sludien,  p.  178;  Die  christliche  Legende, 
pp.  85,  162. 

78.  Giinter,  Legenden-Studien,  p.  59. 

79.  Ibid.,  p.  208. 

80.  Ibid.,  p.  107;  cf.  the  list  of  others  of  similar  character  in 
Th.  Trede,  Das  Heidentum  in  der  Romischen  Kirche,  I,  1889,  pp. 
158  ff. 

81.  Ibid. 

8 1  a.     Op.  cit.,  p.  610. 

82.  Legenden-Studien,  p.  106. 

83.  J.  B.  Heinrich,  Dogmatische  Theologie,  vol.  X,  p.  797,  makes 
much  of  this:  "A  miracle  which  belongs  peculiarly  to  them, 
wrought  not  by  but  on  the  holy  bodies,  is  their  incorruptibility 
through  the  centuries.  No  doubt  this  incorruptibility  can  in  many 
cases  be  explained  by  purely  natural  causes;  but  in  many  cases 
the  miracle  is  obvious.  It  is  especially  evident  when  a  portion 
only  of  the  holy  body  remains  uncorrupted,  particularly  that  por- 
tion which  was  peculiarly  placed  at  the  service  of  God  during  life, 
as  the  tongue  of  St.  John  of  Neponac,  the  arm  of  St.  Stephen  of 
Hungary,  the  heart  of  St.  Teresa,  etc.  And  especially  when,  with 
the  preservation  of  the  body  there  is  connected  a  pleasant  fragrance 
instead  of  the  necessarily  following  penetrating  corpse-odor,  or 
when  everything  was  done,  as  there  was  done  with  the  body  of  St. 
Francis  Xavier,  to  bring  about  a  speedy  corruption."  It  is  aston- 
ishing what  stress  is  laid  on  this  incorruptibility  of  the  body  of  the 
saints.  Thus  Herbert  Thurston  (Hastings's  ERE,  VIII,  149) 
thinks  it  worth  while,  in  a  very  condensed  article  on  Lourdes,  to 
record,  of  Bernadette  Soubirous:  "It  is  noteworthy  that,  though 
her  body  at  the  time  of  death  (1879)  was  covered  with  tumors  and 
sores,  it  was  found,  when  the  remains  were  officially  examined  in 
1909,  thirty  years  afterwards,  entire  and  free  from  corruption  (see 
Carriere,  Histoire  de  Notre-Dame  de  Lourdes,  p.  243)."  On  this 
matter  see  A.  D.  White,  A  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science  with 
Theology,  1896,  II,  pp.  10,  11,  who  sets  it  in  its  right  light,  and  men- 
tions similar  instances — of  those  who  were  not  saints. 

84.  Accordingly,  Percy  Dearmer,  Body  and  Soul9,  191 2,  p.  262, 


ROMAN   CATHOLIC   MIRACLES  271 

says:  "For  the  greater  part  of  Christian  history  faith-healing  was 
mainly  centered  in  relics,  so  that  probably  more  people  have  bene- 
fited in  this  way  than  in  any  other."  Speaking  particularly  no 
doubt  of  the  ancient  church,  but  in  terms  which  would  apply  to 
every  age,  Heinrich  {op.  cit.,  X,  p.  796)  observes:  "Now,  however, 
these  miracles  are  regularly  wrought  at  the  graves,  in  the  churches, 
and  often  precisely  by  the  relics  of  the  saints,"  and  he  is  led  to 
add  two  pages  further  on  (p.  798):  "There  is  scarcely  another 
doctrine  of  the  church  which  has  been  so  approved,  established  by 
God  Himself,  as  the  veneration  of  the  saints  and  relics" — that  is 
to  say  by  miraculous  attestation. 

85.  For  the  literature  of  pilgrimages,  see  the  bibliography  at- 
tached to  the  article  "Wallfahrt  und  Wallfahrtsorten,"  in  Schiele 
and  Zscharnack's  Religion. 

86.  Hastings's  ERE,  vol.  VIII,  pp.  684  f.  It  is  a  refreshing  note 
that  Meister  Eckhard  strikes,  proving  that  common  sense  was  not 
quite  dead  even  in  the  opening  years  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
when  he  asks,  "  What  is  the  good  of  the  dead  bones  of  saints  ?  The 
dead  can  neither  give  nor  take." 

87.  W.  R.  Inge,  Christian  Mysticism,  1889,  p.  262  and  note  2, 
is  prepared  to  maintain  that  "a  degraded  form"  of  fetichism  is 
exhibited  in  much  else  in  modern  Roman  Catholicism  than  its  relic- 
worship.  He  finds  it  exhibited,  for  example,  "by  the  so-called 
neo-mystical  school  of  modern  France,  and  in  the  baser  types  of 
Roman  Catholicism  everywhere."  He  adduces  in  illustration 
Huysmans  two  "mystical"  novels,  En  Route  and  La  CathSdrale, 
and  comments  as  follows:  "The  naked  fetichism  of  the  latter  book 
almost  passes  belief.  We  have  a  Madonna  who  is  good-natured 
at  Lourdes  and  cross-grained  at  La  Salette;  who  likes  'pretty 
speeches  and  little  coaxing  ways'  in  'paying  court'  to  her,  and  who 
at  the  end  is  apostrophised  as  'our  Lady  of  the  Pillar,'  'our  Lady 
of  the  Crypt.'  It  may,  perhaps,  be  excusable  to  resort  to  such 
expedients  as  these  in  the  conversion  of  savages"  (Query:  Is  it?); 
"but  there  is  something  singularly  repulsive  in  the  picture  (drawn 
apparently  from  life)  of  a  profligate  man  of  letters  seeking  salva- 
tion in  a  Christianity  which  has  lowered  itself  far  beneath  educated 
paganism."  "Our  Lady  of  the  Pillar,"  "Our  Lady  of  the  Crypt," 
are  two  images  of  Mary  venerated  at  the  cathedral  at  Chartres, 
information  concerning  which  is  given  in  the  article  entitled  "The 
oldest  of  our  Lady's  Shrines:  St.  Mary's  Under-Earth,"  in  The 
Dolphin,  vol.  VI  (July-December,  1904),  pp.  377~399-  On  Mary's 
shrines  in  general,  see  below.  Those  who  have  read  Huysmans's 
La  Cathedrale  should  read  also  Blasco  Ibafies's  La  Catedral,  and 


272  NOTES   TO  LECTURE  III 

perhaps  Evelyn  Underbill's  The  Lost  Word,  that  the  lascinations 
of  cathedral  symbolism  may  be  viewed  from  several  angles. 

88.  Op.  cit.,  vol.  X,  p.  799.  Yet  it  is  not  merely  God  who  is 
venerated  in  the  saints,  he  says;  there  is  an  honor  due  to  the  saints 
in  themselves,  and  accordingly  Alexander  VIII  condemned  the 
proposition:  The  honor  that  is  offered  to  Mary  as  Mary  is  vain. 
On  the  other  hand  it  is  said  that  it  is  merely  the  saint  and  through 
him  God  that  is  venerated  in  the  relic,  according  to  the  explanation 
of  Thomas  Aquinas:  "We  do  not  adore  the  sensible  body  on  its 
own  account,  but  on  account  of  the  soul  which  was  united  with  it, 
which  is  now  in  the  enjoyment  of  God,  and  on  account  of  God, 
whose  ministers  they  were."  Why  then  continue  to  adore  the  body 
when  it  is  no  longer  united  with  the  soul,  on  account  of  its  union 
with  which  alone  it  is  adored? 

89.  P.  794- 

90.  P.  794. 

91.  What  Pfister  says,  p.  610,  although  not  free  from  exaggera- 
tions, is  in  its  main  assertion  true.  In  the  Christian  religion,  he  says, 
the  presence  in  the  relics  of  a  supernatural,  in  a  certain  degree 
magical,  power  is  accustomed  to  be  emphasized  even  more  than  it 
is  in  the  heathen.  For,  according  to  the  Greek  belief,  the  graves 
were  thought  of  chiefly  as  the  protection  of  the  heroes,  without  the 
bones  themselves  being  thought  able  to  work  miracles — for  they 
rest  in  the  grave;  the  miracle,  the  help,  comes  in  general  from  the 
hero  himself,  not  from  an  anonymous,  impersonal,  magical  power 
which  dwells  in  the  relics.  According  to  the  Christian  belief  the 
relics  themselves,  on  the  other  hand,  can  perform  miracles,  and  the 
power  residing  in  them  can  by  contact  be  directly  transferred  and 
produce  effects.  Thus  artificial  relics  can  be  produced  by  contact 
with  genuine  ones.  The  habit  of  relic-partition  is  connected  with 
this:  a  part  of  the  object  filled  with  magical  power  may  act  like 
the  whole.  Compare  Hirn,  p.  490,  note  2:  "We  deliberately  leave 
out  of  consideration  here  the  assertion  of  educated  Catholics  that 
in  the  relics  was  really  worshipped  the  saint  in  the  same  way  that 
God  is  worshipped  in  a  picture  or  a  symbol  (cf.  Esser,  art., 
'Reliquien,'  in  Wetzer-Welte,  Kirchenlexicon).  It  cannot  be  doubted 
that  relic  worship — for  the  earlier  Christians  as  for  the  mass  of  be- 
lievers to-day — was  based  on  utilitarian  ideas  of  the  help  that  might 
be  had  from  the  sacred  remains." 

92.  See  the  characterization  of  the  Catholic  world-view,  by  E. 
Schmidt  in  Schiele  and  Zscharnack's  Religion,  etc.,  vol.  V,  col.  1736. 

93.  Baumgarten,  in  Schiele  and  Zscharnack's  Religion,  etc.,  vol. 
V,  col.  2162. 


ROMAN   CATHOLIC   MIRACLES  273 

94.  The  Sacred  Shrine,  chaps,  i-iv. 

95.  Compare  Smith  and  Cheatham,  Dictionary  of  Christian 
Archeology,  I,  pp.  62,  429;  II,  p.  1775,  and  especially  I,  p.  431: 
"As  churches  built  over  the  tombs  of  martyrs  came  to  be  regarded 
with  peculiar  sanctity,  the  possession  of  the  relics  of  some  saint 
came  to  be  looked  upon  as  absolutely  essential  to  the  sacredness  of 
the  building,  and  the  deposition  of  such  relics  in  or  below  the  altar 
henceforward  formed  the  central  portion  of  the  consecration  rite." 
The  succeeding  account  of  the  ritual  of  the  consecration  should  be 
read. 

96.  The  literature  of  relics  and  relic-veneration  is  sufficiently 
indicated  in  the  bibliographies  attached  to  the  articles  on  the  sub- 
ject in  the  encyclopedias:  Herzog-Hauck,  New  Schaff-Herzog, 
Schiele-Zscharnack.  The  exhibition  of  the  Holy  Coat  at  Treves 
from  August  20  to  October  3, 1891,  with  the  immense  crowd  of  pil- 
grims which  it  brought  to  Treves,  created  an  equally  immense  lit- 
erature, a  catalogue  of  which  may  be  derived  from  the  Theologischer 
Jahresbericht  of  the  time,  and  a  survey  of  which  will  give  an  insight 
into  the  whole  subject  of  the  veneration  of  relics  in  the  nineteenth 
century. 

97.  The  recent  history  of  relic-miracles  in  the  United  States  is 
chiefly  connected  with  the  veneration  of  relics  of  St.  Ann.  Certain 
relics  of  St.  Anthony  venerated  in  the  Troy  Hill  Church  at  Allegheny, 
Pa.,  have  indeed  won  large  fame  for  the  miracles  of  healing  wrought 
by  their  means,  and  doubtless  the  additional  relic  of  the  same  saint 
deposited  in  the  Italian  Church  of  St.  Peter,  on  Webster  Avenue, 
Pittsburgh,  has  taken  its  share  in  these  works.  But  St.  Ann  seems 
to  promise  to  be  the  peculiar  wonder-worker  of  the  United  States. 
The  Church  of  St.  Anne  de  Beaupre  has,  within  recent  years,  become 
the  most  popular  place  of  pilgrimage  in  Canada;  until  1875  not  over 
12,000  annually  visited  this  shrine,  but  now  they  are  counted  by 
the  hundred  thousand;  in  1905  the  number  was  168,000.  A  large 
relic  of  St.  Ann's  finger-bone  has  been  in  the  possession  of  this 
shrine  since  1670;  three  other  fragments  of  her  arm  have  been  ac- 
quired since,  and  it  was  in  connection  with  the  acquisition  of  one 
of  these,  in  1892,  that  the  cult  and  its  accompanying  miracles  of 
healing  were  transferred  to  New  York.  St.  Ann  seems  to  be  one 
of  those  numerous  saints  too  much  of  whom  has  been  preserved  in 
the  form  of  relics.  Her  body  is  said  to  have  been  brought  from  the 
Holy  Land  to  Constantinople,  in  710;  and  it  is  said  to  have  been 
still  in  the  Church  of  St.  Sophia  in  1333.  It  was  also,  it  is  said, 
brought  by  Lazarus  to  Gaul,  during  the  persecution  of  the  Jewish 
Christians  in  Palestine  under  Herod  Agrippa,  and  finally  found  a 


274  NOTES  TO  LECTURE   III 

resting-place  at  Apt.  Lost  to  sight  through  many  years,  it  was 
rediscovered  there  in  the  eighth  century,  and  has  been  in  continu- 
ous possession  of  the  church  at  Apt  ever  since.  Yet  the  head  of 
St.  Ann  was  at  Mainz  up  to  1516,  when  it  was  stolen  and  carried 
to  Diiren  in  the  Rhineland,  and  her  head,  "almost  complete" — 
doubtless  derived  from  Apt — is  preserved  also  at  Chiry,  the  heir 
of  the  Abbey  of  Ourscamp.  Churches  in  Italy,  Germany,  Hun- 
gary, and  in  several  towns  in  France  "flatter  themselves  that  they 
possess  more  or  less  considerable  portions  of  the  same  head,  or  the 
entire  head"  (Paul  Parfait,  Le  Foire  aux  Reliques,  p.  94,  in  an 
essay  on  "The  Head  of  St.  Ann  at  Chiry").  Despite  all  this  Euro- 
pean history,  a  relic  of  St.  Ann  was  again  brought  from  Palestine 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  it  was  this  that  was  given  to  St. 
Anne  d'Auray  in  Brittany  in  the  early  half  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury by  Ann  of  Austria  and  Louis  XIII.  The  origin  of  the  pil- 
grimages and  healings  at  St.  Anne  d'Auray  was  not  in  this  relic, 
however,  but  antedated  its  possession,  taking  their  start  from  ap- 
paritions of  St.  Ann  (1624-1626).  The  relics  which  have  been  re- 
cently brought  to  this  country  are  said  to  derive  ultimately  from 
Apt.  Thence  the  Pope  obtained  an  arm  of  the  saint  which  was 
intrusted  to  the  keeping  of  the  Benedictine  monks  of  St.  Paul- 
outside-the-Wall,  Rome.  From  them,  through  the  kind  offices  of 
Leo  XIII,  Cardinal  Taschereau  obtained  the  "great  relic"  which  was 
presented  to  St.  Anne  de  Beaupre  in  1892;  and  from  thence  also 
came  the  relic,  obtained  by  Prince  Cardinal  Odeschalchi,  and  pre- 
sented to  the  Church  of  St.  Jean  Baptiste  in  East  Seventy-sixth 
Street,  New  York,  the  same  year  (July  15,  1892).  Another  frag- 
ment was  received  by  the  Church  of  St.  Jean  Baptiste  on  August 
6,  1893;  and  some  years  later  still  another  fragment  was  deposited 
in  the  Church  of  St.  Ann  in  Fall  River,  Mass.,  whence  it  was  stolen 
on  the  night  of  December  1,  1901. 

The  "Great  Relic" — a  piece  of  the  wrist-bone  of  St.  Ann,  four 
inches  in  length — was  brought  from  Rome  by  Monsignor  Marquis; 
and,  on  his  way  to  Quebec,  he  stopped  in  New  York  with  it.  Monsig- 
nor O'Reilly  has  given  us  an  enthusiastic  account  of  the  effect  of  its 
exposition  at  the  Church  of  St.  Jean  Baptiste  during  the  first  twenty 
days  of  May  of  that  year  (see  the  Ave  Maria  of  August  6,  1892; 
and  The  Catholic  Review  of  the  same  date).  Something  like  two 
or  three  hundred  thousand  people  venerated  the  relic;  cures  were 
wrought,  though  apparently  not  very  many.  When  Monsignor 
Marquis  returned  on  July  15  with  the  fragment  which  was  to 
remain  at  St.  Jean  Baptiste,  the  enthusiasm  was  redoubled,  and 
St.  Ann  did  not  let  her  feast-day  (July  26)  pass  "without  giving 


ROMAN   CATHOLIC   MIRACLES  275 

some  signal  proof  of  her  love  to  her  children."  Since  then  a  no- 
vena  and  an  exposition  of  the  relics  are  held  during  the  latter  part 
of  each  July,  in  conjunction  with  St.  Ann's  feast-day,  and  many 
miracles  have  been  wrought.  In  1901  a  new  marble  crypt  was 
completed  at  the  church,  and  used  for  the  first  time  for  this  novena 
and  exposition,  and  public  attention  was  very  particularly  called 
to  it.  The  public  press  was  filled  with  letters  pointing  out  abuses, 
or  defending  the  quality  of  the  cures,  which  were  numerous  and 
striking  (see  a  short  summary  note  in  The  Presbyterian  Banner, 
August  8,  1901).  On  the  whole  Monsignor  O'Reilly's  hope  that 
the  depositing  of  the  relics  of  St.  Ann  in  the  Church  of  St.  Jean 
Baptiste  will  result  in  "the  founding  here  in  New  York  of  what  will 
become  a  great  national  shrine  of  St.  Anne" — to  be  signalized,  the 
editor  of  the  Ave  Maria  adds,  "by  such  marvels  as  have  rendered 
the  sanctuaries  of  St.  Anne  de  Beaupre  and  St.  Anne  d'Auray  fa- 
mous throughout  Christendom" — seems  in  a  fair  way  to  be  fulfilled. 
The  following  is  a  typical  instance  of  what  is  happening  there.  It 
was  reported  in  The  Catholic  Telegraph.  It  is  the  case  of  a  young 
man  aged  nineteen,  of  New  Haven,  Conn.:  "Two  years  ago  young 
Maloney,  who  was  working  at  the  time  in  a  New  Haven  factory, 
fell  and  injured  his  hip.  Every  doctor  consulted  said  he  would  be 
a  cripple  for  life.  When  he  walked  he  was  obliged  to  use  crutches. 
Until  recently  he  has  been  under  the  care  of  the  ablest  physicians 
in  the  city,  yet  all  declared  him  incurable.  Hearing  of  several 
cures  wrought  at  St.  Anne's  shrine,  New  York,  he  started  thither, 
making  a  retreat  on  arriving.  After  several  days  spent  in  prayer, 
he  visited  the  shrine  of  St.  Anne.  The  morning  of  his  visit  he  re- 
ceived holy  communion,  and  then  the  relic  of  the  saint  was  applied, 
and  the  sufferer  anointed  with  consecrated  oil.  Almost  instantly 
he  felt  better.  Another  visit  and  he  was  able  to  walk  without 
crutches,  leaving  the  latter  before  the  shrine  in  which  the  relics 
are  kept.  He  was  well,  quite  well,  and  thus  returned  to  New  Haven, 
to  the  astonishment  of  all  who  knew  him."  It  is  worth  noting 
that  the  Cincinnati  Enquirer  of  July  28  and  the  Lexington  (Ky.) 
Leader  of  July  29,  1902,  record  the  sudden  cure  of  a  deaf  woman 
in  St.  Anne's  Church,  West  Covington,  Ky.,  on  St.  Ann's  feast- 
day.  "She  said  she  had  heard  the  key  in  the  tabernacle,  which 
contains  a  relic  of  St.  Ann,  click  as  the  priest  turned  it" — and  after 
that  she  heard  everything. 

The  following  extract  from  The  New  York  Tribune  for  August 
13,  1906,  will  be  not  uninteresting  in  this  connection:  "Two 
thousand  quarts  of  water  from  the  shrine  of  Our  Lady  of  Lourdes, 
in  France,  arrived  here  in  huge  sealed  casks  on  Saturday,  consigned 


276  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III 

to  the  Fathers  of  Mercy,  who  have  charge  of  the  American  shrine 
of  that  name,  at  Broadway  and  Aberdeen  Street,  Brooklyn.  The 
water  will  be  distributed  to  thousands  of  physically  afflicted  men, 
women  and  children  from  all  parts  of  the  country  next  Wednesday 
afternoon  and  the  following  Sunday.  Next  Wednesday  in  the 
Catholic  calendar  is  known  as  the  Feast  of  the  Assumption.  It  is 
the  titular  day  of  the  French  shrine,  and  is  kept  with  equal  solemnity 
by  the  Fathers  of  Mercy  at  the  American  shrine.  The  water  comes 
to  this  country  under  the  seal  of  the  clergy  in  charge  of  the  French 
shrine,  who  guarantee  it  to  be  undiluted.  Father  Porcile,  rector  of 
the  Brooklyn  church,  said  yesterday  that  only  two  ounces  would 
be  given  to  each  person  applying.  The  celebration  of  the  festival 
will  begin  at  [blurred]  o'clock  on  Wednesday  morning  with  a  solemn 
mass.  In  the  afternoon  at  3.30  o'clock  the  pilgrimage  to  the 
shrine,  which  has  stood  for  years  on  the  grounds  of  the  church, 
will  take  place.  Father  Porcile,  who  has  been  at  the  French  shrine 
several  times,  says  the  French  Government  will  not  attempt  to  carry 
out  the  threatened  abandonment  of  Lourdes  on  the  charge  that  it 
is  a  menace  to  public  health.  'I  read  about  French  pathologists 
holding  that  the  piscina  in  which  the  afflicted  bathe  is  unhealthy,' 
he  said.  'Anybody  who  has  seen  the  piscina  knows  better.  It  is 
not  a  pool,  but  a  cavity,  which  is  filled  with  running  water.  If  the 
pool  were  stagnant,  it  might  be  argued,  with  some  show  of  truth, 
that  it  was  unhealthful.'"  It  is  only  right  to  suppose  that  the  re- 
porter misunderstood  his  collocutor  with  regard  to  the  piscinas — 
whether  their  formation  or  their  filth.  Their  filth  is  not  glossed 
by,  say,  Robert  Hugh  Benson  (Lourdes,  1914,  pp.  51  ff.),  who 
bathed  in  one  of  them:  "That  water,"  says  he,  "had  better  not 
be  described." 

98.  Cf.  Giinter,  Legenden-Sludien,  p.  177,  and  especially  Die 
christliche  Legende  des  Abendlandes,  pp.  35  ff. 

99.  This  string  of  epithets  is  taken  from  the  Roman  Breviary, 
Antiphon  to  the  Magnificat.  If  we  wish  to  know  the  extravagances 
to  which  the  prevalent  Mariolatry  can  carry  people,  we  may  go 
to  Liguori's  Le  Glorie  di  Maria,  a  book  which  a  J.  H.  Newman 
could  defend  (Letter  to  Pusey  on  the  Eirenicon,  1866,  pp.  105  ff.). 
"The  way  of  salvation  is  open  to  none  otherwise  than  through 
Mary."  "Whoever  expects  to  obtain  graces  otherwise  than  through 
Mary,  endeavors  to  fly  without  wings."  "Go  to  Mary,  for  God 
has  decreed  that  He  will  grant  no  grace  otherwise  than  by  the  hands 
of  Mary."  "All  power  is  granted  to  thee  (Mary)  in  heaven  and 
on  earth,  and  nothing  is  impossible  to  thee."  "You,  oh  Holy  Vir- 
gin, have  over  God  the  authority  of  a  Mother,  and  hence  can  ob- 


ROMAN  CATHOLIC  MIRACLES  277 

tain  pardon  for  the  most  obdurate  of  sinners."  Here  is  the  way 
J.  K.  Huysmans  represents  her  as  thought  of  by  her  votaries,  doubt- 
less drawing  from  the  life  (La  Cathedrale,  ed.  1903,  p.  9):  "He 
meditated  on  the  Virgin  whose  watchful  attentions  had  so  often 
preserved  him  from  unforeseen  danger,  easy  mistakes,  great  falls. 
Was  she  not" — but  we  must  preserve  the  French  here — "le  Puits 
de  la  Bonte  sans  fond,  la  Collatrice  des  dons  de  la  bonne  Patience, 
la  Touriere  des  cceurs  sees  et  clos;  was  she  not  above  all  the  active 
and  beneficent  Mother?" 

100.  Compare  Lachenmann  in  Schiele  and  Zscharnack's  Re- 
ligion, etc.,  vol.  V,  col.  1837:  "Belief  in  miracles  is  the  chief  mo- 
tive of  the  favorite  places  of  pilgrimage  and  the  climax  is  reached 
in  the  innumerable  localities  where  the  grace  of  Mary  is  sought.  The 
origin  of  these  lies  not  in  the  region  of  veneration  of  relics  since  the 
Catholic  church  knows  neither  the  grave  of  Mary  nor  relics  of  her 
body,  but  goes  back  to  stories  of  visible  appearances  or  of  inner 
revelations  of  the  Mother  of  God  at  particular  localities  which  she 
herself  has  thus  indicated  for  her  special  worship,  or  as  places  of 
grace  (La  Salette,  Lourdes) ;  or  else  to  vows  made  to  Mary  by  in- 
dividuals, or  by  whole  communities,  in  times  of  need;  or  finally  to 
the  miraculous  activities  of  an  image  of  Mary." 

1 01.  A  full  account  of  it  is  given  by  Leon  Marillier  in  The  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  Society  of  Psychical  Research,  vol.  VII  (1891-1892),  pp. 
ioo-no. 

102.  "Our  Lady  of  Pellevoisin,"  reprinted  in  The  Catholic  Re- 
view (New  York)  for  July  30,  1892,  from  the  Liverpool  Catholic 
Times. 

103.  In  J.  K.  Huysmans's  La  Cathedrale  we  are  given  a  highly 
picturesque  meditation  on  the  several  manners  in  which  Mary  has 
revealed  herself.  She  owes  something  to  sinners,  it  seems,  for  had 
it  not  been  for  their  sin  she  could  never  have  been  the  immaculate 
mother  of  God.  She  has  tried  hard,  however,  to  pay  her  debt,  and 
has  appeared  in  the  most  diverse  places  and  in  the  most  diverse 
fashions — though  of  late  it  looks  as  if  she  had  deserted  all  her  old 
haunts  for  Lourdes.  She  appeared  at  La  Salette  as  the  Madonna 
of  Tears.  Twelve  years  later,  when  people  had  got  tired  of  climb- 
ing to  La  Salette  (the  greatest  miracle  about  which  was  that  people 
could  be  got  to  go  there),  she  appeared  at  Lourdes,  no  longer  as  Our 
Lady  of  the  Seven  Sorrows,  but  as  the  Madonna  of  Smiles,  the 
Tenant  of  the  glorious  Joys.  How  everything  has  been  changed ! 
The  special  aspect  in  which  Mary  is  worshipped  at  Chartres,  it  is 
added,  is  under  the  traits  of  a  child  or  a  young  mother,  much  more 
as  the  Virgin  of  the  Nativity  than  as  Our  Lady  of  the  Seven  Sorrows. 


278  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III 

The  old  artists  of  the  Middle  Ages,  working  here,  have  taken  care 
not  to  sadden  her  by  recalling  too  many  painful  memories,  and 
have  wished  to  show,  by  this  discretion,  their  gratitude  to  her  who 
has  constantly  shown  herself  in  their  sanctuary  the  Dispensatrice 
of  benefits,  the  Chatelaine  of  graces. 

104.  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  vol.  XV,  p.  464. 

105.  See  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  vol.  X,  p.  115;  vol.  XV,  p. 
115;  also  B.  M.  Aladel,  The  Miraculous  Medal:  Its  Origin,  His- 
tory, etc.     Translated  from  the  French  by  P.  S.     Baltimore,  1880. 

106.  Doctor  Rouby,  La  Verite  sur  Lourdes,  1010,  pp.  318  f. 

107.  A  sufficient  outline  of  these  scandals  is  given  in  the  article 
on  La  Salette  in  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  which  also  mentions  the 
chief  literature.  It  was  said  that  "the  beautiful  lady"  seen  by 
the  children  was  a  young  woman  named  Lamerliere;  suits  for  slan- 
der were  brought;  and  A.  D.  White  is  able  to  say  (Warfare,  etc.,  II, 
pp.  21-22,  note)  that  the  shrine  "preserves  its  healing  powers  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  miracle  which  gave  rise  to  them  has  twice 
been  pronounced  fraudulent  by  the  French  courts."  The  whole 
matter  is  involved  in  inextricable  confusion.  A  sympathetic  ac- 
count of  La  Salette  may  be  read  in  J.  S.  Northcote,  Celebrated  Sanc- 
tuaries of  the  Madonna,  1868,  pp.  178  ff.  Gustave  Droz's  first 
novel,  Autour  d'une  Source,  1869,  seems  to  have  drawn  part  of  its 
inspiration  from  the  story  of  La  Salette;  it  is  extravagantly  praised 
by  A.  D.  White  (Warfare,  II,  p.  44)  as  "one  of  the  most  exquisitely 
wrought  works  of  modern  fiction";  and  not  quite  accurately  de- 
scribed as  "showing  perfectly  the  recent  evolution  of  miraculous 
powers  at  a  fashionable  spring  in  France."  It  does  show  how  easily 
such  things  may  be  even  innocently  invented.  On  the  question 
whether  the  visions  of  Bernadette  may  not  have  been  the  result  of 
ecclesiastical  arrangement,  see  J.  de  Bonnefon,  Lourdes  et  ses 
Tenanciers,  Paris,  without  date,  and,  on  the  other  side,  G.  Bertrin, 
Lourdes,  un  document  apocryphe,  in  the  Revue  practique  d'Apolo- 
getique,  April  15,  1908,  pp.  125-133. 

108.  See  Marillier,  as  cited,  and  cf.  H.  Thurston's  remarks  in 
Hastings's  ERE,  vol.  VIII,  p.  149. 

109.  J.  K.  Huysmans,  in  his  La  Cathedrale,  suggests  that  two 
rules  seem  to  govern  the  appearances  of  Mary.  First,  she  mani- 
fests herself  only  to  the  poor  and  humble.  Secondly,  she  accom- 
modates herself  to  their  intelligence  and  shows  herself  under  the 
poor  images  which  these  lowly  people  love.  "  She  accepts  the  white 
and  blue  robes,  the  crowns  and  garlands  of  roses,  the  jewels  and 
chaplets,  the  appointments  of  the  first  communion,  the  ugliest  of 
attire.    The  peasants  who  have  seen  her,  in  a  word,  have  had  no 


ROMAN   CATHOLIC   MIRACLES  279 

other  examples  by  which  to  describe  her  (except  under  the  appear- 
ance of  a  'fine  lady')  but  the  traits  of  an  altar  Virgin  of  the  village, 
of  a  Madonna  of  the  Saint-Sulpice  quarter,  of  a  Queen  of  the  street- 
corner." 

no.  We  are  quoting  A.  T.  Myers  and  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  Society  of  Psychical  Research,  vol.  IX,  1894,  p.  177. 

in.     Legenden-Studien,  p.  126. 

112.  Lourdes,  1891,  p.  31,  as  cited  by  Myers,  as  cited,  p.  178. 

113.  Myers,  as  cited,  pp.  178,  179. 

114.  In  the  contrast  which  he  draws  between  La  Salette  and 
Lourdes,  in  his  La  Cathedrale,  J.  K.  Huysmans  does  not  neglect 
this  one.  "And  God  who  imposed  La  Salette,  without  having  re- 
course to  the  methods  of  worldly  publicity,  has  changed  His  tac- 
tics and,  with  Lourdes,  puffing  comes  into  play.  This  is  very  con- 
founding— Jesus  resigning  Himself  to  employ  the  miserable  artifices 
of  human  commerce,  accepting  the  repulsive  stratagems  of  which 
we  make  use  in  pushing  a  product  or  a  business!" 

115.  Lourdes  (the  first  of  the  triad  on  "the  cities,"  Lourdes, 
Rome,  Paris)  was  published  in  1894;  E.  T.  same  year,  by  Vizetelly, 
and  often  since.  Cf.  a  critical  article  on  it  in  The  Edinburgh  Re- 
view, 1903,  No.  103.  The  secret  of  Lourdes,  says  Zola,  is  that  it 
offers  to  suffering  humanity  "the  delicious  bread  of  hope,  for  which 
humanity  ever  hungers  with  a  hunger  that  nothing  will  ever  ap- 
pease"; it  proposes  to  meet  "humanity's  insatiable  yearning  for 
happiness."  Since  its  publication  Catholic  writers  on  Lourdes 
have,  as  is  natural,  concerned  themselves  very  much  with  Zola's 
book;  G.  Bertrin's  work  (Hisloire  critique  des  evenements  de  Lourdes) 
which  reached  its  37th  edition  in  1913,  and  which  Herbert  Thurston 
pronounces  "undoubtedly  the  best  general  work  on  Lourdes" 
(Hastings's  ERE,  vol.  VIII,  p.  150),  would  not  be  unfairly  described 
as  a  formal  reply  to  Zola. 

116.  Edward  Berdoe,  "A  Medical  View  of  the  Miracles  at 
Lourdes,"  in  The  Nineteenth  Century,  October,  1895,  pp.  614  ff. 
Doctor  Berdoe  was  a  liberal-minded  Catholic  in  faith;  see  Herbert 
Thurston's  remarks  in  The  Month  for  November,  1895,  and  his  cita- 
tion of  Doctor  Berdoe's  own  representations  in  The  Spectator,  July, 
1895.     {Cf.  Public  Opinion,  November  28,  1895,  p.  108.) 

117.  Lourdes,  1914,  p.  29. 

118.  The  details  are  given  by  Benson,  p.  32. 

119.  A  curious  fact  emerges  from  Bertrin's  tables  in  his  appen- 
dix (E.  T.,  p.  292);  more  physicians  visit  Lourdes  every  year  to 
look  on  at  the  cures  than  there  are  cures  made  for  them  to  observe. 
For  the  fourteen  years  from  1890  to  1903,  inclusive,  2,530  physicians 


280  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III 

visited  the  Medical  Office  there,  an  average  of  180  yearly.  During 
these  fourteen  years  2,130  cures  were  registered  at  that  office,  an 
average  of  152  yearly. 

120.  A.  D.  White,  Warfare,  etc.,2  vol.  II,  p.  24:  E.  Berdoe,  as 
cited,  p.  615.  Other  estimates  of  the  proportion  of  the  cured  to 
patients  may  be  found  in  Dearmer,  Body  and  Soul,9  1912,  p.  315, 
and  in  Rouby,  La  Verite  sur  Lourdes,  1910,  p.  272.  Rouby  thinks 
that  about  five  out  of  every  thousand  patients  are  cured,  that  is, 
about  one-half  of  one  per  cent;  Dearmer  can  arrive  at  no  more 
than  one  per  cent  from  the  figures  given,  and  remarks  that  even  if 
five  per  cent  be  allowed,  as  is  asserted  by  some,  the  proportion  is 
much  smaller  than  under  regular  psychotherapeutical  treatment. 

121.  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  vol.  X,  191 1,  p.  390;  cf.  the 
earlier  estimates  in  his  Lourdes,  A  History  of  its  Apparitions  and 
Cures,  E.  T.,  1908,  p.  91. 

122.  A  rather  favorable  opportunity  for  estimating  the  propor- 
tion of  cures  to  patients  seems  to  be  afforded  by  the  figures  given 
concerning  the  patients  from  Villepinte,  a  private  asylum  for  con- 
sumptive girls,  near  Paris.  Bertrin  (E.  T.,  pp.  98  ff.)  tells  us  that 
for  the  three  years  1896-1898  inclusive,  58  of  these  girls  were  sent 
to  Lourdes,  of  whom  20  were  cured.  Rouby  (pp.  163  ff.)  derives 
from  Boissarie  a  report  also  for  three  years  (apparently  just  pre- 
ceding those  given  by  Bertrin,  but  not  explicitly  identified)  during 
which  58  girls  were  sent  to  Lourdes,  of  whom  24  were  cured  or 
ameliorated,  the  cure  being  maintained  with  two  or  three  excep- 
tions. Rouby  says  he  investigated  the  facts  for  one  of  these  years, 
1894,  in  which  out  of  24  girls  who  were  sent,  14  were  reported  cured 
or  ameliorated;  he  found  that  10  of  those  so  reported  afterwards 
relapsed,  leaving  only  4  benefited.  He  went  to  Villepinte,  he  says, 
and  investigated  personally  the  facts  for  1902,  finding  that  30  girls 
had  been  sent,  and  all  30  had  come  back  unbenefited;  and  he  quotes 
Ludovic  Naudeau  as  having  investigated  the  facts  for  1901  with 
the  same  result — none  were  benefited.  We  gather  from  Bertrin, 
p.  101,  that  the  same  thing  was  true  for  1903.  Here,  apparently, 
then,  are  three  consecutive  years,  1 901-1903,  in  which  no  cures  at 
all  were  wrought  in  the  Villepinte  delegation. 

123.  Benson,  as  cited,  pp.  25-26. 

124.  We  find  Doctor  E.  Mackey,  Dublin  Review,  October,  1880, 
pp.  396  f.,  very  properly  dissenting  when  Pere  Bonniot  (Le  Miracle, 
etc.,  p.  89)  lays  stress  thus  on  suddenness  as  a  proof  of  miraculous- 
ness  in  a  cure.  "Mere  suddenness  of  cure,"  he  says,  "is  not  de- 
cisive .  .  .  the  power  of  imagination  is  very  great."  Cures  just 
as  remarkable  and  just  as  sudden  as  those  of  Lourdes  constantly 


ROMAN  CATHOLIC  MIRACLES  281 

occur  in  the  ordinary  experience  of  physicians.  Doctor  J.  Burney 
Yeo  quite  incidentally  records  two  such  sudden  cases,  in  an  article 
on  a  subject  remote  from  Lourdes,  in  The  Nineteenth  Century  for 
August,  1888,  vol.  XXIV,  pp.  196-197 — one  of  blindness  and  the 
other  of  lameness.  "A  gentleman,"  says  he,  "the  subject  of  seri- 
ous disease,  who  had  shown  a  tendency  to  the  development  of  some- 
what startling  subjective  symptoms,  suddenly  declared  that  he 
was  blind.  He  was  carefully  examined  by  the  writer  and  by  an 
eminent  oculist,  and  although  no  particular  optical  defect  could  be 
found  in  his  eyes,  to  all  the  tests  it  was  possible  to  apply,  he  appeared 
to  be  blind.  A  few  days  afterwards,  and  without  any  apparent 
or  sufficient  cause  or  reason  for  the  change,  and  almost  with- 
out comment,  he  asked  for  the  Times  newspaper,  which  he  pro- 
ceeded to  read  in  bed  without  any  difficulty!"  "The  next  in- 
stance," he  continues,  "is  perhaps  still  more  remarkable.  A  young 
woman  presented  herself  at  a  London  Hospital,  supporting  herself 
on  crutches,  and  declared  she  was  losing  the  use  of  her  legs.  After 
one  or  two  questions,  and  after  noticing  the  awkward  manner  in 
which  the  crutches  were  used,  the  writer  took  from  her  both  crutches, 
and  ordered  her,  in  a  firm  manner,  to  walk  away  without  them, 
which  she  did !  Some  years  afterwards  he  was  sent  for  into  a  dis- 
tant suburb  to  see  this  person's  father,  having  himself  quite  forgotten 
the  preceding  incident,  when  this  same  young  woman  came  for- 
ward and  reminded  him  that  he  'had  cured  her  of  lameness'  many 
years  ago!  Now,  although  no  curative  agency  whatever,  in  the 
ordinary  sense,  was  introduced  or  applied,  in  either  of  these  in- 
stances, yet  one  of  them  might  have  said,  'whereas  I  was  blind,  now 
I  see,'  and  the  other,  'whereas  I  was  lame,  now  I  walk.'"  Pro- 
fessor Charles  (or  George?)  Buchanan,  "a  distinguished  Professor 
of  Surgery  in  Glasgow"  "visited  Lourdes  in  the  autumn  of  1883, 
and  was  much  interested  in  the  undoubted  benefit  that  some  of 
the  pilgrims  received."  He  published  some  notes  in  the  Lancet  of 
June  25, 1885,  from  which  Doctor  A.  T.  Myers  and  F.  W.  H.  Myers 
extract  the  following  account  of  an  instantaneous  cure  in  which  he 
was  an  actor  {Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  vol. 
IX,  1893-1894,  pp.  191  ff.).  "With  regard,"  he  writes,  "to  persons 
who  have  been  lame  and  decrepit  and  known  as  such  to  their  friends, 
the  fact  of  their  leaving  their  crutches  and  walking  away  without 
help  does  seem  astonishing  and  miraculous,  and  it  is  cases  such  as 
these  which  make  the  greatest  impression."  "I  believe  that  the 
simple  visit  to  the  grotto  by  persons  who  believe  in  it,  and  the  whole 
surroundings  of  the  place,  might  have  such  an  effect  on  the  mind 
that  a  sudden  change  in  the  nerve  condition  might  result  in  immedi- 


282  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III 

ate  improvement  in  cases  where  there  is  no  real  change  of  structure, 
but  where  the  malady  is  a  functional  imitation  of  organic  disease. 
Such  cases  are  frequent  and  familiar  to  all  medical  men,  and  are 
the  most  intractable  they  have  to  deal  with,  the  disorder  being  in 
the  imagination  and  not  in  the  part.  ...     It  is  rather  a  remarka- 
ble coincidence  that  on  October  2,  1883,  within  three  weeks  of  my 
visit  to  Lourdes,  I  received  a  letter  from  Mrs.  F.,  reminding  me  that 
some  years  before  I  had  performed  in  her  case  a  cure,  instantaneous, 
and  to  all  appearances  miraculous,  and  which  she  properly  attrib- 
uted to  undoubting  faith  in  my  word.     It  is  a  very  good  illustra- 
tion of  the  kind  of  case  to  which  I  have  been  alluding,  and  of  the 
power  of  mind  over  mind,  and  of  the  effect  of  imagination  in  simulat- 
ing real  disease.     Mr.  F.  called  on  me  in  October,  1875,  and  re- 
quested me  to  visit  his  wife,  who  had  been  confined  to  bed  for 
many  months  with  a  painful  affection  of  the  spine.     When  I  went 
into  the  house  I  found  Mrs.  F.,  a  woman  of  about  thirty-one  years 
of  age,  lying  in  bed  on  her  left  side,  and  her  knees  crouched  up,  that 
being  the  position  that  afforded  most  relief.     She  was  thin  and 
weak-looking,  with  a  countenance  indicative  of  great  suffering.     I 
was  informed  that  for  many  months  she  had  been  in  the  same  con- 
dition.    She  was  unable  to  move  her  limbs,  any  attempt  being  at- 
tended with  pain,  and  practically  she  was  paralytic.     She  was  not 
able  to  alter  her  position  in  bed  without  help,  and  this  always  gave 
so  much  trouble  that  she  would  have  remained  constantly  in  the 
same  position  if  the  attendants  had  not  insisted  on  moving  her  to 
allow  of  the  bed-clothes  being  changed  and  arranged.     She  had 
altogether  lost  appetite,  and  had  become  dreadfully  emaciated, 
and  only  took  what  was  almost  forced  on  her  by  her  husband  and 
friends.     She  had  given  up  all  hope  of  recovery,  but  had  expressed 
a  strong  desire  to  be  visited  by  me  in  consequence  of  something  she 
had  heard  from  her  husband  in  connection  with  a  health  lecture 
he  had  been  present  at  many  years  before.     When  I  entered  her 
bedroom  something  in  the  way  she  earnestly  looked  at  me  suggested 
the  idea  that  I  might  have  some  influence  over  her  supposing  it  to 
be  a  case  of  hysterical  spine  simulating  real  spine  irritation  and 
sympathetic  paralysis.     The  story  I  got  was  not  that  of  real  disease 
of  spine  or  cord  or  limbs,  and  I  at  once  resolved  to  act  on  the  sup- 
position that  it  was  subjective  or  functional,  and  not  dependent 
on  actual  molecular  change  or  disintegration.     I  went  to  her  bed- 
side and  said  suddenly:    'I  cannot  do  you  any  good  unless  you 
allow  me  to  examine  your  back.'    In  an  instant  she  moved  slightly 
round,  and  I  examined  her  spine,  running  my  finger  over  it  at  first 
lightly,  then  very  firmly,  without  her  wincing  at  all.    I  then  said: 


ROMAN   CATHOLIC   MIRACLES  283 

'Get  out  of  bed  at  once.'  She  declared  she  could  not  move.  I 
said:  'You  can  move  quite  well;  come  out  of  bed,'  and  gave  her 
my  hand,  when,  to  the  surprise  of  her  husband  and  sister,  who 
looked  perfectly  thunderstruck,  she  came  out  of  bed  almost  with 
no  help  at  all,  and  stood  alone.  I  said:  'Walk  across  the  floor 
now,'  and  without  demur,  she  walked  without  assistance,  saying: 
'I  can  walk  quite  well;  I  knew  you  would  cure  me;  my  pains  are 
gone.'  She  then  went  to  bed  with  very  little  assistance,  lay  on  her 
back,  and  declared  she  was  perfectly  comfortable.  She  was  given 
a  glass  of  milk  which  she  took  with  relish,  and  I  left  the  house 
having  performed  a  cure  which  to  the  bystanders  looked  nothing 
short  of  a  miracle.  .  For  many  years  I  heard  nothing  of  Mrs.  F., 
when  on  October  2,  1883,  I  got  her  letter  referred  to,  and  shortly 
after  the  patient  herself  called  at  my  house.  In  February,  1885, 
she  again  called  on  me.  She  is  at  present  in  fair  health,  not  robust, 
but  cheerful  and  contented.  She  says  she  never  altogether  re- 
gained her  full  strength;  but  as  an  evidence  that  she  is  not  feeble 
or  unable  for  a  good  deal  of  exertion,  I  may  state  that  she  now 
lives  about  five  miles  from  my  house,  and  she  made  her  way  alone, 
partly  by  omnibus,  partly  by  tramway,  and  the  rest  on  foot." 
Compare  the  curiously  parallel  case,  happening  half  a  century 
earlier,  described  in  note  26  to  Lecture  IV,  on  the  "Irvingite  Gifts." 

125.  Benson,  as  cited,  p.  24. 

126.  Bertrin,  as  cited,  p.  280. 

127.  Pp.  256,  262. 

128.  P.  280. 

129.  P.  256. 

130.  P.  280. 

131.  P.  262. 

132.  On  the  case  of  Frau  Ruchel,  see  the  report  in  the  Deutsch- 
evangelische  Korrespondenz  for  August  11,  1908.  The  facts  are 
brought  out  in  the  brochure  of  Doctor  Aigner  of  Munich,  Die 
V/ahrheit  iiber  eine  Wunderheilung  in  Lourdes. 

133.  Pp.  197-198. 

134.  Zola,  wishing  to  express  these  limitations  in  a  word,  said 
he  would  not  ask  very  much — only  let  some  one  take  a  knife  and  cut 
his  finger  and  immerse  it  in  the  water,  and  if  it  came  out  cured  he 
would  say  nothing  more.  Charcot  puts  it  in  a  higher  form:  "Faith- 
cure  has  never  availed  to  restore  an  amputated  limb"  (as  cited,  p. 
19).  Percy  Dearmer,  having  theories  of  his  own,  makes  merry 
over  such  statements.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  the  supernatural, 
he  says;  all  that  God  does  is  natural.  But  that  carries  with  it 
that  it  is  not  unnatural.    The  only  limit  to  such  cures  as  we  see  at 


284  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III 

Lourdes,  then,  is  that  nothing  unnatural  can  happen  there.  Of 
course,  then,  faith  cannot  grow  a  new  leg.  But  that  is  only  because 
we  are  men  and  not  crabs,  and  cannot  be  expected  to  act  in  a  crus- 
tacean manner.  Grace  can  turn  a  sick  man  into  a  well  one,  but  it 
cannot  turn  a  man  into  an  apple-tree  or  a  cactus.  God  must  act 
on  the  lines  of  nature;  the  supernatural  is  not  the  unnatural 
(Body  and  Soul,9  pp.  90  ff.).  All  this  is,  of  course,  pure  absurdity. 
It  is  to  be  noted,  not  obscured,  that  there  are  limitations  to  such 
cures;  that  a  lost  member  cannot  be  restored  by  them,  not  even 
a  lost  tooth.  It  is  only  to  dodge  the  question  to  say  that  such  things 
are  out  of  the  question;  they  are  not  out  of  the  question  but  very 
much  in  it — when  it  is  a  question  of  miracle.  It  is  easy  to  say, 
"Better  far  to  hop  about  on  crutches  than  to  have  the  soul  of  a 
crab,"  but  it  is  better  simply  to  acknowledge  that  there  are  physical 
disabilities  which  Lourdes  cannot  repair,  and  that  the  reason  is 
that  they  are  above  the  power  of  nature  to  repair.  It  should  be 
noted  in  passing  that  Lourdes  does  not  admit  that  there  are  any 
physical  disabilities  which  she  cannot  repair,  and  that  the  reason 
is  that  she,  unlike  Dearmer,  believes  in  the  supernatural,  and  be- 
lieves that  she  wields  it. 

135.  Ed.  7,  1905,  p.  55.     (E.  T.,  Medicine  and  Mind.) 

136.  The  New  Review,  January,  1893,  p.  31:  "I  have  seen  pa- 
tients return  from  the  shrines  now  in  vogue  who  had  been  sent 
thither  with  my  consent,  owing  to  my  own  inability  to  inspire  the 
operation  of  the  faith-cure.  I  have  examined  the  limbs  affected 
with  paralysis  or  contraction  some  days  before,  and  have  seen  the 
gradual  disappearance  of  the  local  sensitive  spots  which  always 
remain  for  some  time  after  the  cure  of  the  actual  disease — paralysis 
or  contraction." 

137.  The  Psychic  Treatment  of  Nervous  Disorders,  E.  T.,  1908,  p. 
72:  A  patient,  "whose  neck  and  jaw  had  been  immobilized  for 
years,  and  who  had  undergone  unsuccessfully  medical  and  surgical 
treatment  from  the  most  renowned  clinicians,  found  sudden  cure 
in  the  piscina  at  Lourdes."  Yet  Dubois  does  not  think  well  of 
Lourdes  (p.  211);  that  is  to  say,  after  experience  with  it.  His  ex- 
pectations had  been  good,  and  he  was  disillusioned  only  by  experi- 
ence. "The  cures  there,"  he  says,  "are  in  fact  rare."  Super- 
stition goes  all  lengths,  and — well,  "Lourdes  is  not  very  far  from 
Tarascon." 

138.  As  cited,  p.  271. 

139.  Jean  de  Bonnefon  has  accumulated  at  the  end  of  his 
trenchant  pamphlet,  Faut-il  fermer  Lourdes?  1906 — in  which  he 
argues  that  Lourdes  should  be  abolished  by  the  state — a  number  of 


ROMAN   CATHOLIC   MIRACLES  285 

opinions  from  French  physicians  to  whom  a  questionnaire  was  sent, 
asking  whether  they  thought  the  enterprise  of  Lourdes  useful  or 
injurious  to  the  sick,  whether  they  thought  the  piscinas  were 
dangerous,  on  account  of  the  chill  or  the  filth,  whether  the  long 
pilgrimages  of  the  sick  across  France  were  or  were  not  a  menace 
to  the  country,  and  whether  they  thought  the  laws  of  hygiene  were 
observed  at  Lourdes.  The  opinions  of  the  physicians  vary  greatly: 
many  are  thoroughly  hostile,  a  few  are  wholly  favorable.  What  is 
noticeable  is  that  a  considerable  number  believe  it  is  useful  and 
ought  to  be  sustained,  although  they  have  no  belief  whatever  in 
the  supernaturalness  of  the  cures  wrought  there.  One  physician, 
for  example,  writes:  "For  a  great  number  of  sick  people,  and  par- 
ticularly women,  Lourdes  is  a  benefit.  .  .  .  Free  from  all  religious 
opinions,  I  never  hesitate  to  send  to  Lourdes  sick  people  who  are 
in  the  particular  mental  condition  to  receive  benefit  from  it,  and  I 
have  often  had  occasion  to  congratulate  myself  on  having  done  so" 
(p.  51).  Another  writes  in  a  less  genial  spirit  (p.  51):  "The  enter- 
prise of  Lourdes  is  useful  for  feeble-minded  people,  and  there  are 
legions  of  these  in  our  fine  land  of  France.  ...  I  know  Lourdes, 
and  it  seems  to  me  that  they  are  as  filthy  there — in  the  medical 
sense  of  the  word — as  they  are  everywhere  else  in  France." 

140.  W.  B.  Carpenter,  Principles  of  Mental  Physiology,  1824,  p. 
684,  is  engaged  in  pointing  out  the  physical  effects  which  may  be 
wrought  by  "expectant  attention."  He  says:  "That  the  confident 
expectation  of  a  cure  is  the  most  potent  means  of  bringing  it  about, 
doing  that  which  no  medical  treatment  can  accomplish,  may  be 
affirmed  as  the  generalized  result  of  experiences  of  the  most  varied 
kind,  extending  through  a  long  series  of  ages.  For  it  is  this  which  is 
common  to  methods  of  the  most  diverse  character;  some  of  them 
— as  the  Metallic  Tractors,  Mesmerism,  and  Homoeopathy — pre- 
tending to  some  physical  power;  whilst  to  others,  as  to  the  invoca- 
tions of  Prince  Hohenlohe,  and  the  commands  of  Doctor  Vernon, 
or  the  Zouave  Jacob,  some  miraculous  influence  was  attributed. 
It  has  been  customary,  on  the  part  of  those  who  do  not  accept  the 
'physical'  or  the  'miraculous'  hypothesis  as  to  the  interpretation 
of  these  facts,  to  refer  the  effects  either  to  the  'imagination'  or  to 
'faith' — two  mental  states  apparently  incongruous,  and  neither  of 
them  rightly  expressing  the  condition  on  which  they  depend.  For 
although  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  a  great  number  of  cases  the 
patients  have  believed  themselves  to  be  cured,  when  no  real  ameli- 
oration of  their  condition  had  taken  place,  yet  there  is  a  large  body 
of  testimony  and  evidence  that  permanent  amendment  of  a  kind 
perfectly  obvious  to  others  has  shown  itself  in  a  great  variety  of 


286  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III 

local  maladies,  when  the  patients  have  been  sufficiently  possessed 
by  the  expectation  of  benefit,  and  by  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  the  means 
employed." 

141.  The  New  Review,  January,  1893,  P-  23- 

142.  A  writer  in  The  Edinburgh  Review  for  January,  1903,  p. 
154,  has  this  to  say  of  the  use  of  "suggestion"  at  Lourdes:  "What 
is  so  painful  and  so  repulsive  in  Lourdes  and  similar  centres  of  pop- 
ular devotion,  is  not  so  much  the  fanaticism  of  the  pilgrims,  the 
commercial  element  inseparable  from  the  necessity  of  providing 
transport  and  lodging  for  the  multitude  of  strangers,  or  even  the 
incongruous  emergence  of  those  lower  passions  never  wholly  absent 
when  men  are  met  together,  and  separated  by  so  small  an  interval 
from  overwrought  emotion,  whatever  its  source,  as  the  deliberate 
organization  of  hysteria,  the  training  of  suggestion,  the  exploitation 
of  disease.  Everything  in  the  pilgrimage  is  calculated  to  disturb 
the  equilibrium  of  the  faculties,  to  stimulate,  to  excite,  to  strain. 
The  unsanitary  condition  under  which  the  journey  is  made,  the 
hurry,  the  crowding,  the  insufficient  food  and  sleep,  the  incessant 
religious  exercises,  the  acute  tension  of  every  sense  and  power,  all 
work  up  to  a  calculated  climax." 

143.  Op.  cit.,  E.  T.,  pp.  118  ff. 

144.  Lourdes,  pp.  42  ff. 

145.  Ibid.,  p.  56. 

146.  Ibid.,  p.  v;  cf.  also  Herbert  Thurston,  Hastings's  ERE, 
vol.  VIII,  p.  150.  This  is  apparently  also  what  J.  A.  MacCulloch 
means  when  he  says  (Hastings's  ERE,  vol.  VIII,  p.  682):  "Occa- 
sionally miracles  at  Lourdes  are  also  wrought  on  more  than  neurotic 
diseases,"  and  "they  suggest  an  influx  of  healing  power  from  with- 
out." 

147.  Op.  cit.,  pp.  150  ff.  Cf.  John  Rickaby,  "Explanation  of 
Miracles  by  Unknown  Natural  Forces,"  in  The  Month  for  January, 

1877. 

148.  October,  1880,  pp.  386-398. 

149.  P.  398. 

150.  La  Verite  sur  Lourdes,  pp.  123  ff. 

151.  We  take  the  account  as  given  by  A.  Tholuck,  Vermischte 
Schriften,  I,  p.  139. 

152.  The  shortcomings  of  the  authorities  at  Lourdes  in  their 
reports  of  the  cures  may  be  read  in  The  Dublin  Review,  October, 
1908,  pp.  416  ff.,  apropos  of  Doctor  Boissarie's  L'CEuvre  de  Lourdes, 
new  ed.,  1908.  Cf.  Paul  Dubois,  The  Psychic  Treatment  of  Nervous 
Disorders,  p.  211:  "I  have  detected  in  the  physicians  of  the  bureau 
of  statistics,  in  spite  of  their  evident  good  faith,  a  mentality  of  such 
a  nature  that  their  observations  lose  all  value  in  my  eyes." 


IRVINGITE   GIFTS  287 

153.  Sir  Francis  Champneys,  M.D.,  F.R.C.P.,  in  The  Church 
Quarterly  Review,  April,  1917,  p.  44,  says  justly:  "It  is  not  safe  to 
define  a  Miracle  as  something  which  cannot  be  understood;  for,  at 
that  rate,  what  can  be  understood?" 

154.  Systematic  Theology,  vol.  I,  p.  52. 

155.  Deut.  13  :  2. 

156.  Paris,  p.  195. 

157.  Lourdes,  p.  39. 

158.  See  above,  p.  59. 

159.  Lourdes,  p.  82. 

160.  P.  Saintyves,  Les  Saints  successeurs  des  Dieux,  p.  n,  note  1. 

161.  The  bibliography  at  the  end  of  Herbert  Thurston's  article 
"Lourdes,"  in  Hastings's  ERE,  is  a  model  list,  and  contains  all  that 
the  student  need  concern  himself  about.  The  English  reader  has 
at  his  disposal:  H.  Lasserre,  Miraculous  Episodes  of  Lourdes,  1884; 
R.  F.  Clarke,  Lourdes,  and  its  Miracles,  1888;  G.  Bertrin,  Lourdes; 
a  History  of  its  Apparitions  and  Cures,  1908;  R.  H.  Benson,  Lourdes, 
1914;  together  with  such  illuminating  articles  as  that  of  Professor 
George  Buchanan  in  the  Lancet  of  June  25,  1885;  of  a  series  of 
British  physicians  and  surgeons  in  the  British  Medical  Journal  for 
June  18,  1910;  of  J.  M.  Charcot  ("The  Faith  Cure")  in  The  New 
Review,  January,  1893,  vol.  VIII,  pp.  18-31;  and  of  Doctor  A.  T. 
Myers,  and  F.  W.  H.  Myers  ("Mind  Cure,  Faith  Cure  and  the 
Miracles  of  Lourdes")  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  vol.  IX,  1 893-1 894,  pp.  160-209.  There  are  also  three 
excellent  articles  by  Catholic  physicians  accessible:  Doctor  E. 
Mackey,  Dublin  Review,  October,  1880,  pp.  386-398;  Doctor  J.  R. 
Gasquet,  Dublin  Review,  October,  1894,  pp.  342-3575  Doctor  E. 
Berdoe,  Nineteenth  Century,  October,  1895,  pp.  614-618. 

NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV 

IRVINGITE   GUTS 

i.     Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  LIII,  p.  302. 

2.  F.  J.  Snell,  Wesley  and  Methodism,  1900,  p.  157. 

3.  "The  Principles  of  a  Methodist  Farther  Explained,"  etc., 
in  Works,  New  York,  1856,  vol.  V,  p.  328. 

4.  "I  acknowledge,"  he  says,  "that  I  have  seen  with  my  eyes, 
and  heard  with  my  ears,  several  things  which,  to  the  best  of  my  judg- 
ment, cannot  be  accounted  for  by  an  ordinary  course  of  natural 
causes;  and  which  I  therefore  believe  ought  to  be  'ascribed  to  the 
extraordinary  interposition  of  God.'  If  any  man  choose  to  style 
them  miracles,  I  reclaim  not.     I  have  diligently  inquired  into  the 


288  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV 

facts,  I  have  weighed  the  preceding  and  following  circumstances. 
I  have  strove  to  account  for  them  in  a  natural  way.  ...  I  cannot 
account  for  (them)  ...  in  a  natural  way.  Therefore,  I  believe 
they  were  .  .  .  supernatural."  (Op.  cit.,  p.  325.)  On  Wesley's 
ingrained  superstition  and  wonder-craving  proclivities,  see  the 
remarks  by  L.  Tyerman,  The  Life  and  Times  of  the  Rev.  John  Wes- 
ley,b  1880,  I,  pp.  220  ff.;  and  Isaac  Taylor,  there  referred  to.    \ 

5.  "A  Letter  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Conyers  Middleton;  occasioned 
by  his  late  'Free  Inquiry,'"  in  Works,  as  cited,  vol.  V,  p.  746. 

6.  Snell,  as  cited,  pp.  153  f. 

7.  Works,  1811,  vol.  VIII,  pp.  322,  329.  Cf.  The  Edinburgh 
Review,  January,  1831,  p.  272,  note.  On  Wesley's  views  on  extraor- 
dinary exercises,  see  Richard  Watson,  "Life  of  Rev.  John  Wesley," 
in  Watson's  Works,  1835,  pp.  89  ff.;  also  Watson's  observations  on 
Southey's  Life,  pp.  385  ff.,  421  ff. 

8.  John  Lacy's  Prophetical  Warnings,  1707,  pp.  3,  31,  32,  as 
cited  by  William  Goode,  The  Modem  Claims  to  the  Possession  of  the 
Extraordinary  Gifts  of  the  Spirit,  Stated  and  Examined,  etc.,  second 
edition,  1834,  p.  194.  Cf.  pp.  188-189.  Goode's  account  of  "The 
French  Prophets"  and  similar  phenomena  is  very  instructive. 

9.  An  interesting  account  of  present-day  "Irvingism"  will  be 
found  in  an  article  by  Erskine  N.  White  in  The  Presbyterian  and  Re- 
formed Review,  October,  1899,  vol.  X,  pp.  624-635;  see  also  the 
article  by  Samuel  J.  Andrews,  "  Catholic  Apostolic  Church,"  in  The 
New  Schaf-Eerzog  Encyclopedia  of  Religious  Knowledge,  with  its 
supplement  by  Th.  Kolde,  and  the  added  bibliography. 

10.  The  Collected  Writings  of  Edward  Irving,  edited  by  his 
nephew,  the  Reverend  G.  Carlyle,  M.A.  In  five  volumes,  London 
and  New  York,  1866,  vol.  V,  pp.  499  ff.,  532  ff. 

11.  Chalmers  himself  says:  "When  Irving  was  associated  with 
me  at  Glasgow  he  did  not  attract  a  large  congregation,  but  he  com- 
pletely attached  to  himself  and  his  ministry  a  limited  number  of 
persons  with  whose  minds  his  own  was  in  affinity.  I  have  often," 
he  adds,  "observed  this  effect  produced  by  men  whose  habits  of 
thinking  and  feeling  are  peculiar  or  eccentric.  They  possess  a 
magnetic  attraction  for  minds  assimilated  to  their  own."  (William 
Hanna,  Memoirs  of  the  Life  and  Writings  of  Thomas  Chalmers,  New 
York,  1855,  vol.  Ill,  pp.  275-276.)  C.  Kegan  Paul  {Biographical 
Sketches,  1883,  p.  8)  puts  it  thus:  "Though  his  labors  from  house 
to  house  were  unceasing,  though  all  brought  face  to  face  with  him 
loved  him,  in  the  pulpit  he  was  unrecognized.  ...  A  few  looked 
on  him  with  exceeding  admiration,  but  neither  the  congregation 
nor  Chalmers  himself  gave  him  cordial  acceptance."    In  Glasgow, 


IRVINGITE   GIFTS  289 

says  Mrs.  Oliphant  {The  Life  of  Edward  Irving,  New  York,  1862, 
p.  98),  "Irving  lived  in  the  shade."  "It  was  then  a  kind  of  deliver- 
ance," says  Th.  Kolde  (Herzog-Hauck,  vol,  IX,  1901,  p.  425,  lines 
14  f),  "when  by  the  intermediation  of  Chalmers,  he  was  chosen  in 
1822  as  minister  to  the  little  (it  had  then  about  fifty  members) 
Scottish  (so-called  Caledonian)  congregation  which  was  connected 
with  a  small  Scotch  Hospital  in  Hatton  Garden,  London." 

12.  See  sub.  nom.  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 

13.  From  1829  to  1833  they  published  a  periodical,  The  Morning 
Watch,  a  Journal  of  Prophecy. 

14.  J.  A.  Froude,  Life  of  Carlyle,  1795-1835,  vol.  II,  p.  177. 

15.  See  Mrs.  Oliphant's  Life,  p.  302. 

16.  Ibid.,  pp.  312,  362. 

17.  The  writer  of  the  sketch  of  Scott  in  the  Dictionary  of  Na- 
tional Biography  thinks  Mrs.  Oliphant  does  him  injustice.  There 
seems  to  be  no  good  reason  for  so  thinking.  Cf.  what  David  Brown 
says  of  him,  The  Expositor,  III,  VI,  pp.  219,  266. 

18.  Fraser's  Magazine,  January,  1832,  quoted  by  Mrs.  Oliphant, 

>•  363- 

>•  365. 

>•  378. 

>•  379- 

>.  363. 

>•  379- 

).  381.  It  is  perhaps  worth  mentioning  that  neither 
of  these  young  women  was  bedridden.  The  miracle  did  not  con- 
sist in  their  literally  rising  up  from  their  beds. 

26.  Samuel  J.  Andrews,  The  New  Schaf-Herzog  Encyclopedia 
of  Religious  Knowledge,  vol.  II,  457,  thinks  it  worth  while,  in  the 
interest  of  the  genuineness  of  the  "gifts,"  to  insist  on  their  first 
occurrence  in  England  apart  from  Irving's  congregation.  The 
deputation  to  Scotland,  he  writes,  "returned  fully  convinced  that 
the  utterances  were  divine.  In  May,  1831,  like  utterances  were 
heard  in  London,  the  first  in  a  congregation  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. This  being  reported  to  the  bishop,  he  forbade  them  in  the 
future  as  interfering  with  the  service.  Their  occurrence  in  several 
dissenting  congregations  brought  forth  similar  prohibitions,  and 
this  led  to  the  utterances  being  made  chiefly  in  the  church  of  Ed- 
ward Irving,  he  being  a  believer  in  their  divine  origin.  But  they 
were  not  confined  to  London.  At  Bristol  and  other  places  the  same 
spiritual  phenomena  appeared."  The  entire  drift  of  Andrews's 
account  is  to  represent  the  "gifts"  as  thrust  upon,  rather  than 


363 

19. 

Ibid. 

P- 

20. 

Ibid. 

P- 

21. 

Ibid. 

P- 

22. 

Ibid. 

P- 

23- 

Ibid. 

P- 

24. 

Ibid. 

P- 

25- 

Ibid. 

P- 

290  NOTES   TO  LECTURE  IV 

earnestly  wooed,  by  Irving  and  his  fellows.  This  is  wholly  unhis- 
torical.  On  Miss  Fancourt's  case,  see  Mrs.  Oliphant,  Life,  etc., 
pp.  416,  561 ;  it  was  the  subject  of  a  controversy  between  The  Morn- 
ing Watch  and  The  Christian  Observer,  some  account  of  which  may 
be  read  in  The  Edinburgh  Review,  June,  1831  (vol.  LIII,  pp.  263  ff.). 
The  opinion  of  the  medical  attendants  was  that  there  was  nothing 
miraculous  in  the  cure.  One  of  their  opinions  (Mr.  Travers's)  is 
so  modern,  and  a  parallel  case  which  is  inserted  in  it  is  so  instructive, 
that  we  transcribe  the  latter  part  of  it.  "A  volume,  and  not  an 
uninteresting  one,"  we  read,  "might  be  compiled  of  histories  re- 
sembling Miss  Fancourt's.  The  truth  is,  these  are  the  cases  upon 
which,  beyond  all  others,  the  empiric  thrives.  Credulity,  the 
foible  of  a  weakened  though  vivacious  intellect,  is  the  pioneer  of  an 
unqualified  and  overweening  confidence,  and  thus  prepared,  the  pa- 
tient is  in  the  most  hopeful  state  of  mind  for  the  credit  as  well  as 
the  craft  of  the  pretender.  This,  however,  I  mention  only  by  the 
way,  for  the  sake  of  illustration.  I  need  not  exemplify  the  sudden 
and  remarkable  effects  of  joy,  terror,  anger,  and  other  passions  of 
the  mind  upon  the  nervous  systems  of  confirmed  invalids,  in  re- 
storing to  them  the  use  of  weakened  limbs,  etc.  They  are  as  much 
matters  of  notoriety  as  any  of  the  properties  and  powers  of  direct 
remedial  agents  recorded  in  the  history  of  medicine.  To  cite  one. 
A  case  lately  fell  under  my  notice  of  a  young  lady,  who,  from  in- 
ability to  stand  or  walk  without  acute  pain  in  her  loins,  lay  for 
near  a  twelvemonth  upon  her  couch,  subjected  to  a  variety  of  treat- 
ment by  approved  and  not  inexperienced  members  of  the  profes- 
sion. A  single  visit  from  a  surgeon  of  great  fame  in  the  manage- 
ment of  such  cases  set  the  patient  upon  her  feet,  and  his  prescrip- 
tion amounted  simply  to  an  assurance,  in  the  most  confident  terms, 
that  she  must  disregard  the  pain,  and  that  nothing  else  was  required 
for  her  recovery,  adding,  that  if  she  did  not  do  so  she  would  become 
an  incurable  cripple.  She  followed  his  directions  immediately,  and 
with  perfect  success.  But  such  and  similar  examples  every  medical 
man  of  experience  could  contribute  in  partial  confirmation  of  the 
old  adage,  'Foi  est  tout.'  Of  all  moral  energies,  I  conceive  that 
faith  which  is  inspired  by  a  religious  creed  to  be  the  most  powerful; 
and  Miss  Fancourt's  case,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  was  one  of  the 
many  instances  of  sudden  recovery  from  a  passive  form  of  nervous 
ailment,  brought  about  by  the  powerful  excitement  of  this  extraor- 
dinary stimulus,  compared  to  which,  in  her  predisposed  state  of 
mind,  ammonia  and  quinine  would  have  been  mere  trifling."  A 
curiously  similar  instance  to  that  given  by  Mr.  Travers  is  adduced 
by  a  distinguished  recent  surgeon,  Mr.  George  Buchanan,  in  illus- 


IRVINGITE  GIFTS  291 

trating  what  he  saw  done  at  Lourdes.  It  is  recorded  by  the  Messrs. 
Myers,  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  vol. 
IX  (1893-1894),  pp.  191  ff.,  and  we  have  cited  it  thence  on  a  previous 
occasion.  See  above,  pp.  218  ff.  Doctor  W.  B.  Carpenter,  in  an  arti- 
cle in  The  Quarterly  Review,  vol.  XCIII  (1853),  p.  513,  directly  refers 
to  Miss  Fancourt's  case,  and  pronounces  it  a  case  of  "hysterical" 
paralysis,  such  as  is  well  known  to  be  curable  by  mental  means. 

27.  Mrs.  Oliphant,  Life,  p.  420. 

28.  Ibid.,  p.  417. 

29.  Ibid.,  p.  418. 

30.  The  Expositor,  Third  Series,  vol.  VI  (October,  1887),  268. 

31.  Cf.  what  Irving  says,  in  Mrs.  Oliphant's  Life,  p.  418. 

32.  For  example,  Mr.  Pilkington's,  printed  in  Mrs.  Oliphant's 
Life,  p.  424. 

33.  Cf.  Mrs.  Oliphant's  Life,  pp.  448  ff. 

34.  Robert  Baxter,  Narrative  of  Facts,  Characterizing  the  Super- 
natural Manifestations  in  Members  of  Mr.  Irving' 's  Congregation,  and 
other  Individuals  in  England  and  Scotland,  and  formerly  in  the 
Writer  Himself,  second  edition,  1893  (April;  the  first  edition  had 
been  published  in  February  of  the  same  year).  Mrs.  Oliphant 
prints  extracts  from  Baxter's  Narrative  in  her  Appendix  B,  pp.  562  ff . 

35.  Baxter,  op.  cit.,  p.  118. 

36.  As  cited,  p.  272. 

37.  "Though  Irving  was  the  'angel'  of  the  church,"  writes 
Theo.  Kolde  {The  New  S  chaff -Herzog  Encyclopedia  of  Religious 
Knowledge,  vol.  VI,  p.  34),  "  the  voices  of  the  prophets  left  him  little 
hearing.  Cardale,  Drummond,  and  the  prophet  Taplin  took  the 
lead  of  the  movement,  and  the  new  organization  proceeded  rapidly, 
new  functionaries  were  created  as  the  Spirit  bade,  on  the  analogy 
of  the  New  Testament  indications,  and  presently  there  were  six 
other  congregations  in  London,  forming  with  Irving's  the  counter- 
part of  the  seven  churches  of  the  Apocalypse.  Irving  accepted 
the  whole  development  in  faith,  although  he  had  conceived  the 
Apostolic  office  as  something  different  which  should  not  interfere 
with  the  independence  of  himself  as  the  'angel.'  But  he  had  lost 
control  of  the  movement,  and  those  who  now  led  it  lost  no  oppor- 
tunity of  humiliating  the  man  to  whose  personality  they  had  owed 
so  much.  When  the  sentence  of  deposition  was  confirmed  by  the 
Presbytery  of  Annan,  and  then  by  the  Scottish  General  Synod,  and 
he  returned  to  London  strong  in  the  consciousness  of  his  call  of 
God  to  the  office  of  angel  and  pastor  of  the  church,  he  was  not  al- 
lowed to  baptize  a  child,  but  was  told  to  wait  until,  on  the  bidding 
of  the  prophets,  he  should  be  again  ordained  by  an  apostle.     His 


292  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV 

health  was  now  failing,  and  his  physician  ordered  him,  in  the  autumn 
of  1834,  to  winter  in  the  South.  He  went,  however,  to  Scotland, 
where  the  prophets  had  promised  him  great  success  in  the  power 
of  the  Spirit,  and  died  in  Glasgow,  where  he  is  buried  in  the  crypt 
of  the  Cathedral."  There  are  obvious  slips  in  this  account,  due 
apparently  to  the  translator,  but  we  transcribe  it  as  it  stands.  On 
the  matter,  cf.  Mrs.  Oliphant's  Life,  pp.  527  £f. 

38.  Mrs.  Oliphant's  Life,  p.  505. 

39.  C.  Kegan  Paul,  as  cited,  pp.  29  ff.,  strongly  protests  against 
this  representation,  citing  Mrs.  Oliphant's  account,  and  contro- 
verting it.  "  The  congregation,"  he  writes,  "  after  some  wanderings, 
found  refuge  in  a  picture-gallery  in  Newman  Street,  their  home  for 
many  years.  Here  it  was  that  the  organization  and  ceremonies 
began  to  set  aside  the  old  Presbyterian  forms,  and  gain  somewhat 
of  Catholic  magnificence.  Here  it  was  that  by  the  voice  of  prophecy 
six  apostles  were  called  out  to  rule  the  church  before  Mr.  Irving's 
death.  Mr.  Irving  was  not  called  as  an  apostle,  nor  was  he  a 
prophet,  nor  did  he  speak  with  tongues;  but  he  remained  as  he  had 
ever  been,  the  chief  pastor  of  the  congregation,  the  Angel,  as  the 
minister  in  charge  of  each  church  began  to  be  called.  He  was  not 
shelved  in  any  degree,  nor  slighted,  and  though  the  details  which 
took  place  were  ordered  by  others  in  prophecy,  yet  the  whole  was 
what  he  had  prayed  for  and  foreseen,  as  necessary  in  his  estimation 
to  the  perfection  of  the  church.  So  in  ordering  and  building  up  his 
people  under,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  the  immediate  direction  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  passed  the  rest  of  that  year."  There  is  nothing  here 
inconsistent  with  Mrs.  Oliphant's  representation;  it  is  the  same 
thing  looked  at  from  a  different  angle.  Paul,  however,  by  adducing 
the  dates,  does  show,  that,  as  he  puts  it,  "  there  was  no  period  of 
mournful  silence  during  which  he  waited  to  speak,  nor  was  his 
recognition  for  a  moment  doubtful."  For  the  rest,  he  only  shows 
that  Irving  kissed  the  rod. 

40.  The  Brazen  Serpent,  p.  253,  quoted  in  William  Hanna,  Let- 
ters of  Thomas  Erskine  of  Linlathen  from  1S00  till  1840,  1877,  p.  183. 
Compare  these  passages  quoted  on  the  same  page  from  On  the  Gifts 
of  the  Spirit:  "Whilst  I  see  nothing  in  the  Scripture  against  the  re- 
appearance, or  rather  the  continuance  of  miraculous  gifts  in  the 
church,  but  a  great  deal  for  it,  I  must  further  say  that  I  see  a  great 
deal  of  internal  evidence  in  the  west  country  to  prove  their  genuine 
miraculous  character,  especially  in  the  speaking  with  tongues.  .  .  . 
After  witnessing  what  I  have  witnessed  among  those  people,  I 
cannot  think  of  any  person  decidedly  condemning  them  as  impos- 
tors, without  a  feeling  of  great  alarm.     It  certainly  is  not  a  thing 


IRVINGITE   GIFTS  293 

to  be  lightly  or  rashly  believed,  but  neither  is  it  a  thing  to  be 
lightly  or  rashly  rejected.     I  believe  that  it  is  of  God." 

41.  Hanna,  as  cited,  p.  218;  cf.  p.  220. 

42.  Hanna,  as  cited,  p.  209:  "I  think  that  I  mentioned  to  Lady 
Matilda  at  Cadder  the  circumstance  that  shook  me  with  regard  to 
the  Macdonalds  at  Port  Glasgow,  that  in  two  instances  when 
James  Macdonald  spoke  with  remarkable  power,  a  power  acknowl- 
edged by  all  the  other  gifted  people  there,  I  discovered  the  seed  of 
his  utterances  in  the  newspapers.  .  .  .  And  I  put  it  to  him;  and 
although  he  had  spoken  in  perfect  integrity  (of  that  I  have  no 
doubt)  yet  he  was  satisfied  that  my  conjecture  as  to  its  origin  was 
correct.  ...  I  thus  see  how  things  may  come  into  the  mind  and 
remain  there,  and  then  come  forth  as  supernatural  utterances,  al- 
though their  origin  be  quite  natural.  James  Macdonald  could  not 
say  that  he  was  conscious  of  anything  in  these  two  utterances  dis- 
tinguishing them  from  all  the  others;  but  only  said  that  he  believed 
these  two  were  of  the  flesh.  Taplin  made  a  similar  confession  on 
being  reproved  by  Miss  Emily  Cardale  for  having  rebuked  Mr. 
Irving  in  an  utterance.  He  acknowledged  that  he  was  wrong;  and 
yet  he  could  not  say  where  the  difference  lay  between  that  utter- 
ance and  any  other." 

43.  Hanna,  as  cited,  p.  204.  He  adds:  "This  does  not  change 
my  mind  as  to  what  the  endowment  of  the  church  is,  if  she  had 
faith,  but  it  changes  me  as  to  the  present  estimate  that  I  form  of 
her  condition." 

44.  In  March,  1834,  after  hearing  in  Edinburgh  "the  utterances  " 
through  Cardale  and  Drummond,  he  speaks  of  his  scepticism  re- 
garding them,  despite  his  agreement  (except  in  two  instances)  with 
the  matter  delivered  in  them,  and  the  pleasingness  of  their  form. 
"The  shake  which  I  have  received  on  this  matter,"  he  writes 
(Hanna,  as  cited,  p.  209),  "is,  I  find  very  deep;  or  rather  it  would 
be  a  truer  expression  of  my  feelings  to  say  that  I  am  now  convinced 
that  I  never  did  actually  believe  it."  He  adds:  "My  conviction 
that  the  gifts  ought  to  be  in  the  church  is  not  in  the  least  degree 
touched,  but  a  faith  in  any  one  instance  of  manifestation  which  I 
have  witnessed,  like  the  faith  which  I  have  in  the  righteousness  and 
faithfullness  of  God,  I  am  sure  I  have  not  and  never  have  had,  as 
far  as  I  can  judge  on  looking  back — that  is,  the  only  true  faith, 
even  'the  substance  of  things  hoped  for.'" 

45.  Hanna,  as  cited,  p.  233:  "James  Macdonald  is  to  be  buried 
to-day  at  one  o'clock.  .  .  .  This  event  has  recalled  many  things 
to  my  remembrance.  I  lived  in  the  house  with  them  for  six  weeks, 
I  believe,  and  I  found  them  a  family  united  to  God  and  to  each 


294  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV 

other.  James  especially  was  an  amiable  and  clean  character,  per- 
fectly true.  And  those  manifestations  which  I  have  so  often  wit- 
nessed in  him  were  indeed  most  wonderful  things  and  most  mighty, 
and  yet — I  am  thoroughly  persuaded — delusive."  This  was  written 
February  6,  1835.  George  Macdonald  died  the  year  following — 
both  of  consumption,  the  disease  which  carried  off  Isabella  Camp- 
bell, and  from  which  both  Mary  Campbell  and  Margaret  Macdonald 
were  supposed  to  be  suffering  when  they  were  "healed." 

46.  P.  279. 

47.  P.  304. 

48.  Life  of  Story  of  Rosneath,  by  his  son,  p.  231,  note,  quoted 
by  Henry  F.  Henderson,  The  Religions  Controversies  of  Scotland, 
1905,  p.  126. 

49.  Scottish  Divines  150J-1S72,  etc.,  1883,  being  a  series  of  "St. 
Giles  Lectures,"  Lecture  VII,  Edward  Irving,  by  R.  Herbert  Story, 
p.  254. 

50.  Henderson,  as  cited,  p.  126.  "Story  concluded  by  confess- 
ing," continues  Henderson,  "that  he  had  greatly  sinned  in  not  ex- 
posing her  earlier,  but  he  had  been  restrained  from  doing  this  by 
feelings  of  affection.  What  change  this  letter  might  have  wrought 
on  Irving  had  he  received  it  we  cannot  tell.  Probably  not  even 
Story's  voice  could  have  now  recalled  him."  Mary  Campbell  had 
in  183 1  married  a  young  clerk  in  a  writer's  office  in  Edinburgh,  of 
the  name  of  W.  R.  Caird,  and  was  residing  at  Albury  (not  without 
interruptions  for  journeys)  as  the  guest  of  Henry  Drummond; 
she  died  in  1840  (see  Edward  Miller,  The  History  and  Doctrines  of 
Irvingism,  1878,  vol.  I,  pp.  58  ff.).  Caird,  who  was  acting  as  a 
lay-evangelist,  undertook  in  1841  an  Irvingist  mission  in  south 
Germany,  and  in  i860  was  raised  to  the  "apostolic"  office.  On 
the  27th  of  January,  1832,  Irving  wrote  to  Story  announcing  the 
new  developments  which  had  been  introduced  by  Baxter,  and  con- 
cluding with  the  remarkable  appeal:  "Oh,  Story,  thou  hast  griev- 
ously sinned  in  standing  afar  off  from  the  work  of  the  Lord,  scan- 
ning it  like  a  skeptic  instead  of  proving  it  like  a  spiritual  man ! 
Ah!  brother,  repent,  and  the  Lord  will  forgive  thee!"  To  this 
letter,  as  a  postscript,  he  adds  this  single  unprepared-for  line:  "Mrs. 
Caird  is  a  saint  of  God,  and  hath  the  gift  of  prophecy."  We  cannot 
miss  the  air  of  defiant  assertion,  or  fail  to  read  behind  it  a  feeling 
of  the  need  of  something  in  Mrs.  Caird's  defense.  Mrs.  Oliphant 
(p.  450)  justly  comments:  "The  sentence  of  approval  pronounced 
with  so  much  decision  and  brevity  at  the  conclusion  of  this  letter 
addressed  to  him  was  Irving's  manner  of  avoiding  controversy, 
and  making  his  friend  aware  that,  highly  as  he  esteemed  himself, 


IRVINGITE   GIFTS  295 

he  could  hear  nothing  against  the  other,  whose  character  had  re- 
ceived the  highest  of  all  guarantees  to  his  unquestioning  faith." 
The  cause  of  Irvingite  gifts  was  indeed  bound  up  in  one  bundle 
with  the  trustworthiness  of  Mary  Campbell's  manifestations. 
Thomas  Bayne,  writing  on  Robert  Story,  in  the  Dictionary  of  Na- 
tional Biography  (vol.  LIV,  p.  430),  condenses  the  story  thus:  "In 
1830  his  parishioner,  Mary  Campbell,  professed  to  have  received 
the  'gift  of  tongues,'  and  though  Story  exposed  her  imposture,  she 
found  disciples  in  London,  and  was  credited  by  Edward  Irving,  then 
in  the  maelstrom  of  his  impassioned  fanaticism.  On  the  basis  of 
her  predictions  arose  the  'Holy  Catholic  Apostolic  Church'  (see 
Carlyle,  Life,  II,  204)." 

51.  Hanna,  as  cited,  p.  209. 

52.  P.  213. 

53.  The  nearest  he  came  to  it  seems  to  be  expressed  in  the  sen- 
tence (p.  208) :  "I  have  a  witness  within  me  which,  I  am  conscious, 
tries  truth;  but  I  do  not  know  a  witness  within  me  which  tries 
power."  With  this  inner  infallible  sense  compare  Mrs.  Eddy's 
assertion  (Christian  Science  History,  ed.  1,  p.  16):  "I  possess  a  spiri- 
tual sense  of  what  the  malicious  mental  practitioner  is  mentally 
arguing  which  cannot  be  deceived;  I  can  discern  in  the  human  mind 
thoughts,  motives,  and  purposes;  and  neither  mental  arguments 
nor  psychic  power  can  affect  this  spiritual  insight."  An  infallible 
spiritual  insight  is  a  dangerous  thing  to  lay  claim  to,  and  what  we 
take  to  be  its  deliverance  a  still  more  dangerous  thing  to  follow. 

54.  Pp.  507  ff. 

55.  Erskine  in  his  tract,  On  the  Gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  1830, 
writes:  "For  the  languages  are  distinct,  well-inflected,  well-com- 
pacted languages;  they  are  not  random  collections  of  sounds,  they 
are  composed  of  words  of  various  lengths,  with  the  natural  variety, 
and  yet  possessing  that  commonness  of  character  which  marks 
them  to  be  one  distinct  language.  I  have  heard  many  people 
speak  gibberish,  but  this  is  not  gibberish,  it  is  decidedly  well- 
compacted  language." — (Quoted  in  Hanna,  Chalmers,  vol.  Ill,  p. 
253;  Erskine,  p.  392.) 

56.  As  quoted  in  The  Edinburgh  Review,  June,  1831,  p.  275: 
"The  tongues  spoken  by  all  the  several  persons  who  have  received 
the  gift  are  perfectly  distinct  in  themselves,  and  from  each  other. 
J.  Macdonald  speaks  two  tongues,  both  easily  discernible  from  each 
other.  I  easily  perceived  when  he  was  speaking  in  the  one,  and 
when  in  the  other  tongue.  J.  Macdonald  exercises  his  gift  more 
frequently  than  any  of  the  others;  and  I  have  heard  him  speak  for 
twenty  minutes  together,  with  all  the  energy  of  action  and  voice 


296  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV 

of  an  orator  addressing  his  audience.  The  language  which  he  then, 
and  indeed  generally,  uttered  is  very  full  and  harmonious,  con- 
taining many  Greek  and  Latin  radicals,  and  with  inflections  also 
much  resembling  those  of  the  Greek  language.  I  also  frequently 
noticed  that  he  employed  the  same  radical  with  different  inflections; 
but  I  do  not  remember  to  have  noticed  his  employing  two  words 
together,  both  of  which,  as  to  root  and  inflection,  I  could  pro- 
nounce to  belong  to  any  language  with  which  I  am  acquainted. 
G.  Macdonald's  tongue  is  harsher  in  its  syllables,  but  more  grand 
in  general  expression.  The  only  time  I  ever  had  a  serious  doubt 
whether  the  unknown  sounds  which  I  heard  on  these  occasions  were 
parts  of  a  language,  was  when  the  Macdonalds'  servant  spoke 
during  the  first  evening.  When  she  spoke  on  subsequent  occasions, 
it  was  invariably  in  one  tongue,  which  not  only  was  perfectly  dis- 
tinct from  the  sounds  she  uttered  at  the  first  meeting,  but  was 
satisfactorily  established  to  my  conviction,  to  be  a  language." 
"One  of  the  persons  thus  gifted,  we  employed  as  our  servant  while 
at  Port  Glasgow.  She  is  a  remarkably  quiet,  steady,  phlegmatic 
person,  entirely  devoid  of  forwardness  or  of  enthusiasm,  and  with 
very  little  to  say  for  herself  in  the  ordinary  way.  The  language 
which  she  spoke  was  as  distinct  as  the  others;  and  in  her  case,  as 
in  the  others  (with  the  exceptions  I  have  before  mentioned),  it  was 
quite  evident  to  a  hearer  that  the  language  spoken  at  one  time  was 
identical  with  that  spoken  at  another  time."  Perhaps  it  ought  to 
be  added  that  when  Mary  Campbell's  written-tongue  (for  she 
wrote  as  well  as  spoke)  was  submitted  to  the  examination  of  Sir 
George  Staunton  and  Samuel  Lee,  they  pronounced  it  no  tongue 
at  all  (Hanna,  Chalmers,  vol.  Ill,  p.  266). 

57.  Mrs.  Oliphant,  Life,  p.  430. 

58.  Ibid. 

59.  Ibid.,  p.  431. 

60.  Ibid. 

61.  Reminiscences,  p.  252. 

62.  The  British  Weekly,  January  18,  1889.  We  have  purposely 
drawn  these  descriptions  from  the  more  sympathetic  sources.  We 
must  add,  however,  that  the  more  competent  the  observer  was  the 
less  favorable  was  the  impression  made  upon  him.  J.  G.  Lockhart 
writes  to  "Christopher  North,"  in  1824  {Christopher  North,  A  Mem- 
oir of  John  Wilson,  by  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Gordon.  Am.  ed., 
New  York,  1863,  p.  271):  "Irving,  you  may  depend  upon  it,  is  a 
pure  humbug.  He  has  about  three  good  attitudes,  and  the  lower 
notes  of  his  voice  are  superb,  with  a  fine  manly  tremulation  that 
sets  women  mad,  as  the  roar  of  a  noble  bull  does  a  field  of  kine; 


IRVINGITE  GIFTS  297 

but  beyond  this  he  is  nothing,  really  nothing.  He  has  no  sort  of 
real  earnestness;  feeble,  pumped-up,  boisterous,  overlaid^stuff  is 

his  staple;1  he  is  no  more  a  Chalmers  than is  a  Jeffrey."     That 

is  a  vignette  from  a  competent  hand  of  Irving  as  a  preacher,  in  the 
first  flush  of  his  popularity  in  London— before  the  arrival  of  the 
"gifts."  And  here,  now,  is  a  full-length  portrait,  from  an  equally 
competent  hand, of  a  service  ten  years  afterwards  (spring  of  1833),  at 
Newman  Street.  It  is  taken  from  the  intimate  journal  of  Joseph 
Addison  Alexander  {The  Life  of  Joseph  Addison  Alexander,  D.D., 
by  Henry  Carrington  Alexander,  New  York,  1870,  vol.  I,  pp.  289  ff .) : 

"After  breakfast,  having  learned  that  Edward  Irving  was  to 
hold  a  meeting  at  half-past  eleven,  we  resolved  to  go;  but  without 
expecting  to  hear  the  tongues,  as  they  have  not  been  audible  of 
late.  Mr.  Nott,  who  had  called  before  breakfast,  conducted  us 
to  Newman  Street,  where  Irving  is  established  since  he  left  the 
house  in  Regent  Square.  As  we  walked  along  we  saw  a  lady  before 
us  arm  in  arm  with  a  tall  man  in  black  breeches,  a  broad-brimmed 
hat,  and  black  hair  hanging  down  his  shoulders.  This,  Mr.  Nott 
informed  us,  was  Irving  himself  with  his  cara  sposa.  We  followed 
them  to  the  door  of  the  chapel  in  Newman  Street,  where  Mr.  Nott 
left  us,  and  we  went  in.  The  chapel  is  a  room  of  moderate  size, 
seated  with  plain  wooden  benches,  like  our  recitation  rooms.  The 
end  opposite  the  entrance  is  semicircular,  and  filled  with  amphi- 
theatrical  seats.  In  front  of  these  there  is  a  large  arch,  and  immedi- 
ately beneath  it  a  reading-desk  in  the  shape  of  an  altar,  with  a  large 
arm-chair  beside  it.  From  this  point  there  are  several  steps  de- 
scending toward  the  body  of  the  house,  on  which  are  chairs  for  the 
elders  of  the  church.  I  mention  these  particulars  because  I  think 
the  pulpit  and  its  appendages  extremely  well  contrived  for  scenic 
effects.'.  .  . 

"Soon  after  we  were  seated,  the  chairs  below  the  pulpit  were 
occupied  by  several  respectable  men,  one  of  them  quite  handsome 
and  well  dressed.  Another  man  and  a  woman  took  their  seats 
upon  the  benches  behind.  While  we  were  gazing  at  these,  we  heard 
a  heavy  tramp  along  the  aisle,  and  the  next  moment  Irving  walked 
up  to  the  altar,  opened  the  Bible,  and  began  at  once  to  read.  He 
has  a  noble  figure,  and  his  features  are  not  ugly,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  an  awful  squint.  His  hair  is  parted  right  and  left,  and 
hangs  down  on  his  shoulders  in  affected  disorder.  His  dress  is 
laboriously  old-fashioned— a  black  quaker  coat  and  small  clothes. 
His  voice  is  harsh,  but  like  a  trumpet;  it  takes  hold  of  one,  and 
cannot  be  forgotten.  His  great  aim  appeared  to  be  to  vary  his  atti- 
tudes and  appear  at  ease.    He  began  to  read  in  a  standing  posture, 


298  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV 

but  had  scarcely  finished  half  a  dozen  verses  when  he  dropped  into 
the  chair  and  sat  while  he  read  the  remainder.  He  then  stepped 
forward  to  the  point  of  his  stage,  dropped  on  his  knees  and  began 
to  pray  in  a  voice  of  thunder;  most  of  the  people  kneeling  fairly 
down.  At  the  end  of  the  prayer  he  read  the  Sixty-sixth  Psalm, 
and  I  now  perceived  that  his  selections  were  designed  to  have  a 
bearing  on  the  persecutions  of  his  people  and  himself.  The  chapter 
from  Samuel  was  that  relating  to  Shimei.  He  then  gave  out  the 
Sixty-sixth  Psalm  in  verse;  which  was  sung  standing,  very  well, 
Irving  himself  joining  in  with  a  mighty  bass.  He  then  began  to 
read  the  Thirty-ninth  of  Exodus,  with  an  allegorical  exposition, 
after  a  short  prayer  for  divine  assistance.  The  ouches  of  the  breast- 
plate he  explained  to  mean  the  rulers  of  the  church.  While  he  was 
dealing  this  out,  he  was  interrupted  in  a  manner  rather  startling. 
I  had  observed  that  the  elders  who  sat  near  him  kept  their  eyes 
raised  to  the  skylight  overhead,  as  if  wooing  inspiration.  One  in 
particular  looked  very  wild.  His  face  was  flushed,  and  he  occa- 
sionally turned  up  the  white  of  his  eyes  in  an  ominous  style.  For 
the  most  part,  however,  his  eyes  were  shut.  Just  as  Irving  reached 
the  point  I  have  mentioned  and  was  explaining  the  ouches,  this 
elder  .  .  .  burst  out  in  a  sort  of  wild  ejaculation,  thus,  'Taranti- 
hoiti-f aragmi-santi '  (I  do  not  pretend  to  recollect  the  words);  'O 
ye  people — ye  people  of  the  Lord,  ye  have  not  the  ouches — ye  have 
not  the  ouches — ha-a-a;  ye  must  have  them — ye  must  have  them 
— ha-a-a;  ye  cannot  hear — ye  cannot  hear.'  This  last  was  spoken 
in  a  pretty  loud  whisper,  as  the  inspiration  died  away  within  him. 
When  he  began,  Irving  suspended  his  exposition  and  covered  his 
face  with  his  hands.  As  soon  as  the  voice  ceased,  he  resumed  the 
thread  of  his  discourse,  till  the  'tongue'  broke  out  again  'in  un- 
known strains.'  After  these  had  again  come  to  an  end,  Irving  knelt 
and  prayed,  thanking  God  for  looking  upon  the  poverty  and  deso- 
lation of  his  church  amidst  her  persecutions.  After  he  had  finished 
and  arisen  from  his  knees,  he  dropped  down  again,  saying,  'one 
supplication  more,'  or  'one  thanksgiving  more.'  He  now  proceeded 
to  implore  the  Divine  blessing  on  the  servant  who  had  been  or- 
dained as  a  prophet  in  the  sight  of  the  people.  After  this  supple- 
mentary prayer,  he  stood  up,  asked  a  blessing  in  a  few  words,  and 
began  to  read  in  the  sixth  John  about  feeding  on  Christ's  flesh.  In 
the  course  of  his  remarks  he  said:  'The  priests  and  churches  in 
our  day  have  denied  the  Saviour's  flesh,  and  therefore  cannot  feed 
upon  him.'  He  then  prayed  again  (with  genuflexion),  after  which 
he  dropped  into  his  chair,  covered  his  face  with  his  hands,  and  said, 
'Hear  now  what  the  elders  have  to  say  to  you.'    No  sooner  was 


IRVINGITE   GIFTS  299 

this  signal  given  than  the  'tongue'  began  anew,  and  for  several 
minutes  uttered  a  flat  and  silly  rhapsody,  charging  the  church  with 
unfaithfulness  and  rebuking  it  therefor.  The  'tongue'  having  fin- 
ished, an  elder  who  sat  above  him  rose,  with  Bible  in  hand,  and 
made  a  dry  but  sober  speech  about  faith,  in  which  there  was  nothing, 
I  believe,  outre.  The  handsome,  well-dressed  man,  whom  I  have 
mentioned,  at  Irving's  left  hand,  now  rose  and  came  forward  with 
his  Bible.  His  first  words  were,  'Your  sins  which  are  many  are 
forgiven  you.'  His  discourse  was  incoherent,  though  not  wild, 
and  had  reference  to  the  persecution  of  the  church.  The  last 
preacher  on  the  occasion  was  a  decent,  ministerial-looking  man  in 
black,  who  discoursed  on  oneness  with  Christ.  A  paper  was  now 
handed  to  Irving,  which  he  looked  at,  and  then  fell  upon  his  knees. 
In  the  midst  of  his  prayer  he  took  the  paper  and  read  it  to  the 
Lord,  as  he  would  have  read  a  notice.  It  was  a  thanksgiving  by 
Harriet  Palmer  for  the  privilege  of  attending  on  these  services 
to-day.  After  the  prayer,  they  sang  a  Psalm,  and  then  the  meet- 
ing was  dismissed  by  benediction.  The  impression  made  on  my 
mind  was  one  of  unmingled  contempt.  Everything  which  fell  from 
Irving's  lips  was  purely  flat  and  stupid,  without  a  single  flash  of 
genius,  or  the  slightest  indication  of  strength  or  even  vivacity  of 
mind.  I  was  confirmed  in  my  former  low  opinion  of  him,  founded 
on  his  writings.  .  .  .  Dr.  Cox  and  I  flattered  ourselves  that  he 
observed  us,  and  preached  at  us.  I  saw  him  peeping  through  his 
fingers  several  times,  and  I  suppose  he  was  not  gratified  to  see  us 
gazing  steadfastly  at  him  all  the  time,  for  he  took  occasion  to  tell 
the  people  that  it  would  profit  them  nothing  without  the  circum- 
cision of  the  ear.  This  he  defined  to  be  the  putting  away  of  all 
impertinent  curiosity  and  profane  inquisitiveness — all  gazing  and 
prying  into  the  mysteries  of  God,  and  all  malicious  reporting  of  his 
doings  in  the  church." 

63.  Robert  Baxter,  Narrative  of  Facts,  ed.  2,  1833,  p.  xxviii; 
cf.  C.  Kegan  Paul,  op.  cit.,  p.  29,  as  above  in  note  39. 

64.  Baxter,  as  cited. 

65.  Baxter,  op.  cit.,  p.  133. 

66.  Baxter,  op.  cit.,  p.  95. 

67.  Can  the  mind  help  going  back  to  the  vivid  description  which 
Irenaeus  gives  us  of  how  Marcus  the  Magician  made  his  women 
prophesy  (Irenaeus,  Adv.  Hcer.,  I,  13,  3)  ?  "Behold,"  he  would  say 
after  rites  and  ceremonies  had  been  performed  fitted  to  arouse  to 
great  expectations,  "grace  has  descended  upon  thee;  open  thy 
mouth  and  prophesy ! "  "But  when  the  woman  would  reply, ' I  have 
never  prophesied  and  do  not  know  how ! '  he  would  begin  afresh 


300  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV 

with  his  incantations  so  as  to  astonish  the  deluded  victim,  and  com- 
mand her  again,  'Open  thy  mouth,  and  speak  whatever  occurs  to 
thee  and  thou  shalt  prophesy.'  She  then,  vainly  puffed  up  and 
elated  by  these  words  and  greatly  excited  by  the  expectation  of 
prophesying,  her  heart  beating  violently,  reaches  the  requisite 
pitch  of  audacity,  and  idly  as  well  as  impudently  utters  some  non- 
sense as  it  happens  to  occur  to  her,  such  as  might  be  expected  from 
one  heated  by  an  empty  spirit.  And  then  she  reckons  herself  a 
prophetess." 

68.  Henderson,  op.  cit.,  p.  125. 

69.  The  literature  on  Edward  Irving  and  Irvingism  will  be  found 
noted  with  sufficient  fulness  in  The  New  Schqff-Herzog  Encyclopedia 
of  Religious  Knowledge,  vol.  II,  p.  459,  and  vol.  VI,  p.  34;  and  at 
the  head  of  the  article  on  Irving  in  Herzog-Hauck.  The  primary 
literature  on  the  Scotch  movement  is  given  in  the  footnotes  to  the 
brief  account  of  it  inserted  by  William  Hanna  at  pp.  175-183  of 
his  Letters  of  Thomas  Erskine  of  Linlathen  from  1800  till  1845,  1877. 
For  an  almost  world-wide  recent  recurrence  of  phenomena  similar 
to  the  Irvingite  "gifts,"  especially  "speaking  with  tongues,"  see  the 
informing  article  of  Frederick  G.  Henke,  "The  Gift  of  Tongues  and 
Related  Phenomena  at  the  Present  Day,"  in  The  American  Journal 
of  Theology,  April,  1909,  XIII,  2,  pp.  193-206.  Henke  gives  refer- 
ences to  the  primary  literature.  For  a  first-hand  account  of  some 
related  phenomena  in  connection  with  a  great  revival  in  Kentucky 
in  1801-1803,  see  the  letter  of  Thomas  Cleland  on  "Bodily  Affec- 
tions produced  by  Religious  Excitement,"  printed  in  The  Biblical 
Repertory  and  Princeton  Review  for  1834,  vol.  VI,  pp.  336  ff.;  refer- 
ences to  further  first-hand  accounts  of  the  Kentucky  phenomena 
are  given  by  William  A.  Hammond,  M.D.,  Spiritualism  and  Allied 
Causes  and  Conditions  of  Nervous  Derangement,  1876,  pp.  232  ff. 
See  also  Catherine  C.  Cleaveland,  The  Great  Revival  in  the  West, 
I79S-f8os,  1916.  The  judicious  remarks  of  Charles  Hodge  on  "The 
Disorders  Attending  the  Great  Revival  of  1740-1745,"  in  his  The 
Constitutional  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States 
of  America,  1857,  vol.  II,  pp.  65  ff.,  should  be  read  along  with  the 
account  of  them  given  by  Jonathan  Edwards.  On  the  physical 
accompaniments  of  John  Wesley's  preaching  at  Bristol,  chiefly  in 
1739,  see  an  account  in  Tyerman,  The  Life  and  Times  of  the  Rev. 
John  Wesley, i  1880,  vol.  I,  pp,  255-270.     Compare  note  7,  on  p.  288. 


FAITH-HEALING  301 

NOTES  TO  LECTURE   V 

FAITH-HEALING 

1.  The  Natural  History  of  Immortality,  by  Joseph  William  Rey- 
nolds, M.A.,  rector  of  St.  Anne  and  St.  Agnes  with  St.  John 
Zachary,  Gresham  St.,  London,  and  prebendary  of  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral,  1891,  p.  286. 

2.  These  facts  are  taken  from  a  paper  by  R.  Keiso  Carter,  The 
Century  Magazine,  March,  1887,  vol.  XI,  p.  780. 

3-     P-  13. 

4.  January,  1884;  vol.  V,  p.  49. 

5.  How  natural  this  attitude  is,  in  the  circumstances,  is  inter- 
estingly illustrated  by  its  appearance  even  among  the  pre-Christian 
Jews.  A.  Schlatter,  in  his  Der  Glaube  im  Neuen  Testament,  1885, 
when  discussing  the  conception  of  faith  in  the  synagogue,  remarks 
upon  the  tendency  which  showed  itself  to  push  the  duty  of  faith 
(for  faith  was  conceived  in  the  synagogue  as  a  duty,  and  therefore 
as  a  work)  to  extremes.  The  Jerusalem  Targum  on  Gen.  40  :  23 
blames  Joseph  for  asking  the  chief  butler  to  remember  him;  he 
should  have  depended  on  God's  grace  alone.  Any  one  who,  having 
food  for  to-day,  asks,  What  am  I  to  eat?  fails  in  faith  (Tanck.,  fol. 
29,  4).  All  means  are  to  be  excluded.  He  then  continues  (pp. 
46  ff.):  "Philo  blames  the  employment  of  a  physician  as  lack  of 
faith;  if  anything  against  their  will  befalls  doubters,  they  flee, 
because  they  do  not  believe  in  a  helping  God,  to  the  sources  of  help 
which  the  occurrence  suggests — to  physicians,  simples,  physics, 
correct  diet;  to  all  the  aids  offered  to  a  dying  race;  and,  if  any  one 
suggests  to  them,  Flee  in  your  miseries  to  the  sole  physician  of  the 
ills  of  the  soul,  and  leave  the  aids  falsely  so-called  to  the  creature 
subjected  to  suffering,  they  laugh,  and  scoff,  and  say,  Good  Morrow ! 
— and  are  unwilling  to  flee  to  God  if  they  can  find  anything  to  pro- 
tect them  from  the  coming  evil ;  to  be  sure,  if  nothing  that  man  does 
suffices  but  everything,  even  the  most  highly  esteemed,  shows  itself 
injurious,  then  they  renounce  in  their  perplexity  the  help  of  others, 
and  flee,  compelled,  the  cowards,  late  and  with  difficulty,  to  God, 
the  sole  Saviour  (De  Sacrifici  Abel,  Mang.,  I,  176,  23  ff.).  In 
this  Philo  does  not  express  an  idea  peculiar  to  himself;  the  Son  of 
Sirach,  xxxviii,  1  ff.,  shows  that  in  the  Palestinian  Synagogue  also, 
from  of  old,  the  question  was  discussed,  whether  the  help  of  a  physi- 
cian was  to  be  sought  in  sickness:  'The  Lord  has  created  medicines 
out  of  the  earth,  and  he  that  is  wise  will  not  abhor  them;  was  not 
the  water  made  sweet  with  a  word  that  the  virtue  thereof  might 


302  NOTES   TO  LECTURE   V 

be  known?  .  .  .  My  son,  in  thy  sickness  be  not  negligent;  but 
pray  unto  the  Lord  and  He  will  make  thee  whole.  Leave  off  from 
sin  and  order  thy  hands  aright,  and  cleanse  thy  heart  from  all 
wickedness;  give  a  sweet  savor  and  a  memorial  of  fine  flour,  and 
make  a  fat  offering,  as  not  being.  Then  give  place  to  the  physician, 
for  the  Lord  has  created  Him;  let  him  not  go  from  thee,  for  thou 
hast  need  of  him.  There  is  a  time  when  in  their  hands  there  is 
good  success,  for  they  shall  also  pray  unto  the  Lord,  that  He  would 
prosper  that  which  they  give,  for  ease  and  remedy  to  prolong  life ' 
(38  :  4  f.,  9  ff.).  Sickness,  as  a  judicial  intrusion  of  God  into  the 
life  of  man,  presupposes  sin  and  calls  therefore  the  sick  to  repent- 
ance and  sacrifice;  nevertheless,  for  the  cool  intellect  of  the  Son 
of  Sirach,  this  does  not  exclude  the  use  of  a  physician;  but  the  way 
in  which  he  expressly  places  medical  help  in  connection  with  God's 
working,  and  also  calls  the  Scriptures  to  witness  for  it,  shows  that 
he  had  before  his  eyes  religious  doubts  against  it,  thoughts,  as  Philo 
expresses  them,  that  a  stronger  faith  would  turn  only  to  God." 

6.  P.  193. 

7.  Jellett,  Efficacy  of  Prayer,  p.  41. 

8.  P.  193. 

9.  Op.  cit.,  p.  303. 

10.  Medicine  and  the  Church,  edited  by  Geoffrey  Rhodes,  1910, 
pp.  209  ff. 

11.  Inaugural  Address,  1891,  ed.  2,  p.  37. 

12.  That  our  Lord's  miracles  of  healing  were  certainly  not 
faith-cures,  as  it  has  become  fashionable  among  the  "Modernists" 
to  represent,  has  been  solidly  shown  by  Doctor  R.  J.  Ryle,  "The 
Neurotic  Theory  of  the  Miracles  of  Healing,"  The  Hibberi  Journal, 
April,  1907,  vol.  V,  pp.  572  ff. 

13.  See  p.  41. 

14.  Loc.  cit.,  p.  68. 

15.  Of  course  this  implication  of  the  passage  is  not  neglected 
by  interested  parties.  We  find  for  example  C.  H.  Lea  in  his  A  Plea 
for  .  .  .  Christian  Science,  1915,  pp.  57-58,  writing,  on  the  suppo- 
sition of  the  genuineness  of  this  passage  quite  justly:  "All  Christen- 
dom believes  that  He  gave  His  followers — not  only  those  of  His  own 
time  but  of  all  succeeding  time — the  injunction  to  preach  the  Gospel 
and  to  heal  the  sick.  Now,  the  giving  of  the  injunction  clearly  and 
definitely  implies  .  .  .  that  the  mark  of  one's  being  a  Christian  is 
that  he  has,  or  should  have,  this  knowledge  and  the  corresponding 
power  to  heal." 

16.  See  above,  p.  22. 

17.  Op.  cit.,  pp.  22  ff. 


FAITH-HEALING  303 

18.  Pp.  52  ff. 

19.  I  have  briefly  stated  the  evidence  for  the  spuriousness  of  the 
passage  in  An  Introduction  to  the  Textual  Criticism  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, 1886,  pp.  199  ff.  But  see  especially  F.  J.  A.  Hort,  The  New 
Testament  in  the  Original  Greek,  Introduction,  Appendix,  1881, 
pp.  28  fi.  of  the  Appendix. 

20.  The  passages  between  inverted  commas  may  be  found  in 
Gordon,  op.  cit.,  pp.  29,  31,  33,  34. 

21.  Science  et  Religion,  p.  189. 

22.  We  say  two;  for  a  third,  suggested  as  a  possible  alternative 
by  John  Lightfoot  (Works,  8  vols,  ed.,  vol.  Ill,  p.  316),  does  not 
appear  to  us  possible,  viz.,  that  the  reference  is  to  a  common  Jew- 
ish custom  of  anointing,  in  connection  with  the  use  of  charms,  to 
heal  the  sick.  Lightfoot  quotes  the  Jerusalem  Talmud  (Shab.,  fol. 
14,  col.  3):  "A  man  that  one  charmeth,  he  putteth  oil  upon  his 
head  and  charmeth."  His  comment  is:  "Now,  this  being  a  com- 
mon, wretched  custom,  to  anoint  some  that  were  sick,  and  to  use 
charming  with  the  anointing — this  apostle,  seeing  anointing  was 
an  ordinary  and  good  physic,  and  the  good  use  of  it  not  to  be  ex- 
tinguished for  that  abuse — directs  them  better:  namely,  to  get  the 
elders  or  ministers  of  the  church  to  come  to  the  sick  and  to  add  to 
the  medicinal  anointing  of  him  their  godly  and  fervent  prayers 
for  him,  far  more  available  and  comfortable  than  all  charming 
and  enchanting,  as  well  as  far  more  warrantable  and  Christian." 

23.  Oil  was  a  remedy  in  constant  use,  notably  for  wounds 
(Isaiah  1:6;  Luke  10  :  34),  but  also  for  the  most  extended  variety  of 
diseases.  Its  medicinal  qualities  are  commended  by  Philo  (Somn. 
M.,  I,  666),  Pliny  (N.  H.,  23  :  34-5°),  and  Galen  (Med.  Temp., 
Bk.  II).  Compare  the  note  of  J.  B.  Mayor,  The  Epistle  of  James,1 
1892,  p.  158.  John  Lightfoot  gives  (vol.  Ill,  p.  315)  some  apposite 
passages  from  the  Talmud.  His  comment  seems  to  be  thoroughly 
justified  (p.  316) :  "Now  if  we  take  the  apostle's  counsel  to  be  refer- 
ring to  this  medicinal  practice,  we  may  construe  it  that  he  would 
have  this  physical  administration  to  be  improved  to  the  best  ad- 
vantage; namely  that,  whereas  'anointing  with  oil'  was  ordinarily 
used  to  the  sick,  by  way  of  physic — he  adviseth  that  they  should 
send  for  the  elders  of  the  church  to  do  it;  not  that  the  anointing  was 
any  more  in  their  hands  than  in  another's,  as  to  the  thing  itself,  for 
it  was  still  but  a  physical  application — but  that  they  with  the  apply- 
ing of  this  corporeal  physic,  might  also  pray  with  and  for  the  pa- 
tient, and  supply  the  spiritual  physic  of  good  admonition  and  com- 
forts to  him.  Which  is  much  the  same  as  if  in  our  nation,  where 
this  physical  anointing  is  not  so  in  use,  a  sick  person  should  send 


304  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V 

for  the  minister  at  taking  of  any  physic,  that  he  might  pray  with 
him,  and  counsel  and  comfort  him." 

24.  The  sacrament  of  extreme  unction,  grounded  on  this  text 
on  the  understanding  that  the  anointing  was  intended  in  a  cere- 
monial sense,  has  oddly  enough  (since  the  primary  promise  of  the 
text  is  bodily  healing)  become  in  the  church  of  Rome,  the  sacra- 
ment of  the  dying.  According  to  the  Council  of  Trent  (14th  ses- 
sion) it  is  to  be  esteemed  as  totius  Christianae  vita?  consumma- 
tivum;  according  to  Thomas  Aquinas,  it  is  the  ultimum  et  quod- 
ammodo  consummativum  totius  spiritualis  curationis  (Cont.  Gent., 
14,  c.  73).  It  is  according  to  the  Council  of  Trent  to  be  given 
especially  to  those  who  seem  to  be  in  peril  of  death,  unde  et  sacra- 
mentum  exeuntium  nuncupatur.  Its  effects  are  described  (re- 
versing the  implications  of  the  passage  in  James)  as  primarily 
spiritual  healing,  and  only  secondarily  and  solely  in  subordination 
to  the  spiritual  healing,  bodily  healing.  Bodily  healing,  therefore, 
only  very  occasionally  results  from  it.  As  J.  B.  Heinrich  explains 
(Dogmatische  Theologie,  X,  1904,  p.  225):  "Since  it  is  generally 
more  profitable,  and  more  in  accordance  with  the  divine  disposi- 
tions, for  Christians  in  articulo  or  periculo  mortis  to  take  the  last 
step,  than  to  resume  the  battle  of  life  again  for  a  time,  there  ordi- 
narily follows  no  healing."  See  in  general  the  exposition  of  the  doc- 
trine by  Heinrich  as  cited,  pp.  197  ff.  The  popular  expositions  fol- 
low the  scientific,  but  often  with  some  ameliorations.  "Extreme 
Unction,"  we  read  in  one  of  the  most  widely  used  manuals  for  the 
instruction  of  English  Catholics,  "was  instituted  by  our  Lord  to 
strengthen  the  dying,  in  their  passage  out  of  this  world  into  an- 
other" (A  Manual  of  Instructions  in  Christian  Doctrine,  published 
by  the  St.  Anselm's  Society,  London,  and  having  the  imprimatur 
of  Cardinals  Wiseman  and  Manning,  p.  363).  Even  in  this  Manual, 
however,  the  provision  of  the  passage  in  St.  James  is  not  wholly 
forgotten.  We  read  (p.  365) :  "If  God  sees  it  expedient,  this  sacra- 
ment restores  bodily  health.  .  .  .  Some  persons  are  anxious  to 
put  off  the  reception  of  Extreme  Unction  to  the  last  moment,  be- 
cause they  seem  to  regard  it  as  a  prelude  to  certain  death;  while 
in  truth,  if  it  had  been  received  earlier  it  might  have  led  to  their 
recovery.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  miraculous  cures  are  some- 
times effected  by  Extreme  Unction;  but  the  beneficial  effects  which 
it  generally  exercises  on  bodily  health  are  produced  in  an  indirect 
way.  The  grace  of  the  sacrament  soothes  the  soul,  lessens  the  fear 
of  death,  and  brings  on  such  calm  and  peace  of  mind  as  often  to 
lead  to  the  restoration  of  health.  If  God  be  pleased  to  work  a 
direct  miracle  it  is  never  too  late  for  Him  to  do  so;  but  if  the  sacra- 


FAITH-HEALING  305 

ment  is  to  act  as  a  natural  remedy,  indirectly  restoring  health  in 
the  way  just  explained,  it  must  be  received  in  due  time,  otherwise, 
like  ordinary  remedies,  it  will  not  produce  its  effects."  In  a  similar 
spirit  Deharbe's  Catechism  (4  Full  Catechism  of  the  Catholic  Re- 
ligion, translated  from  the  German  of  the  Reverend  Joseph  Deharbe, 
S.  J.,  .  .  .  revised,  enlarged,  and  edited  by  the  Right  Reverend  P. 
N.  Lynch,  D.D.,  bishop" of  Charleston,  1891,  pp.  296,  297),  after  de- 
claring that  Extreme  Unction  "often  relieves  the  pains  of  the  sick 
person,  and  sometimes  restores  him  even  to  health,  if  it  be  expedient 
for  the  salvation  of  his  soul,"  asks:  "Is  it  not  unreasonable  for  a 
person,  from  fear  of  death,  to  defer,  or  even  neglect,  the  receiving  of 
Extreme  Unction  until  he  is  moribund?"  and  replies:  "Certainly; 
for  (1)  Extreme  Unction  has  been  instituted  even  for  the  health  of 
the  body;  (2)  The  sick  person  will  recover  more  probably,  if  he  em- 
ploys in  time  the  remedy  ordained  by  God,  than  if  he  waits  until 
he  cannot  recover  except  by  a  miracle;  and  (3)  If  his  sickness  be 
mortal  what  should  he  wish  for  more  earnestly  than  to  die  happy, 
which  this  holy  sacrament  gives  him  grace  to  do?"  "As  many  of 
those  sick  persons  who  were  anointed  by  the  Apostles  were  healed," 
we  read  in  The  Catechumen3  by  J.  G.  Wenham,  1892,  p.  358,  "so 
this  is  often  the  effect  of  this  sacrament  now — that  those  that  re- 
ceive it  obtain  fresh  force  and  vigor,  and  recover  from  their  illness." 
Although,  therefore,  Extreme  Unction  is  "given  to  us  in  prepara- 
tion for  death,"  it  is  ordinarily  explained,  in  deference  to  its  biblical 
foundation-passage,  as  (as  Bellarimine  puts  it,  following  the  language 
of  the  Council  of  Trent)  "also  assisting  in  the  recovery  of  bodily 
health,  if  that  should  be  useful  to  the  health  of  the  soul."  Father 
W.  Humphrey,  S.J.,  The  One  Mediator,  ed.  2,  1894,  chap,  vu, 
explains  the  matter  more  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  authori- 
tative declaration  of  Trent  thus:  "Hence  one  end,  and  that  the 
principal  end,  of  this  sacrament  is  to  strengthen  and  to  comfort  the 
dying  man.  .  .  .  Another  and  a  secondary  end  of  the  Sacrament 
of  Extreme  Unction  is  proximately  to  dispose  and  prepare  the  part- 
ing soul  for  the  new  life  in  which  it  is  about  to  enter.  .  .  .  There 
is  a  third  and  a  contingent  end  of  Extreme  Unction,  and  that  is  the 
bodily  healing  of  the  sick  man  under  certain  conditions"  On  the 
origin  of  this  teaching  and  the  history  of  the  rite  of  Extreme  Unction, 
see  Father  F.  W.  Puller,  The  Anointing  of  the  Sick  in  Scripture  and 
Tradition,  London,  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Knowl- 
edge, 1904;  and  cf.  Percy  Dearmer,  Body  and  Soul,9 1912,  pp.  217  ff. 
The  movement  forming  nowadays  in  the  Anglican  churches, 
with  a  view  to  "the  restoration  to  the  Church  of  the  Scriptural 
Practice  of  Divine  Healing,"  also  bases  the  "office"  of  anointing, 


306  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V 

which  it  proposes,  on  James  5  :  14,  15.  See,  for  example,  F.  W. 
Puller,  Anointing  of  the  Sick,  1904,  chap,  ix;  Percy  Dearmer,  Body 
and  Soul,9  191 2,  esp.  chap,  xxix,  with  Appendix  111;  Henry  B. 
Wilson,  B.D.,  The  Revival  of  the  Gift  of  Healing,  Milwaukee,  The 
Young  Churchman  Company,  1914.  Mr.  Wilson  is  the  director 
of  the  "Society  of  the  Nazarene,"  and  writes  in  its  interest,  print- 
ing also  suitable  prayers  and  an  office  for  the  anointing  of  the  sick. 
His  contention  is  that  the  gift  of  healing  was  never  withdrawn 
from  the  church,  and  that  the  church  must  recover  "her  therapeutic 
ministry"  by  means  of  this  formal  ritual  act.  See  also  Mr.  Wilson's 
later  book,  Does  Christ  Still  Heal  ?  New  York,  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co., 
1917. 

25.  It  is  sometimes  suggested  that  a  miraculous  healing  is  prom- 
ised indeed,  but  that  this  promise  applied  only  to  those  miraculous 
days,  and  is  no  longer  to  be  claimed.  Even  J.  B.  Mayor,  The  Epistle 
of  St.  James,1  1892,  p.  218,  appears  to  lean  to  this  view;  and  it  seems 
to  have  never  been  without  advocates  among  leading  Protestants. 
Luther  writes  to  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg,  December  4,  1539 
(Miss  Currie's  translation  of  Luther' 's  Letters,  p.  378):  "For  Christ 
did  not  make  anointing  with  oil  a  Sacrament,  nor  do  St.  James's 
words  apply  to  the  present  day.  For  in  those  days  the  sick  were 
often  cured  through  a  miracle  and  the  earnest  prayer  of  faith,  as 
we  see  in  James  and  Mark  6."  Thorndike  (Works,  vol.  VI,  p.  65, 
Oxford  edition)  writes:  "This  is  laid  aside  in  all  the  reformed 
churches  upon  presumption  of  common  sense,  that  the  reason  is 
no  longer  in  force,  being  ordained,  as  you  see,  to  restore  health  by 
the  grace  of  miracles  that  no  more  exist."  J.  A.  Hessey  (Sunday, 
i860,  p.  42)  agrees  with  Thorndike.  Nevertheless  the  view  will 
scarcely  approve  itself. 

26.  Op.  cit.,  p.  277.  This  is  the  way  the  common  sense  of  Martin 
Luther  met  the  question  of  the  use  of  remedies  in  disease:  "Our 
burgomaster  asked  me  whether  it  was  against  God's  will  to  use 
medicine,  for  Carlstadt  publicly  preached  tha.t  the  sick  should  not 
use  drugs,  but  should  only  pray  to  God  that  His  will  be  done. 
In  reply  I  asked  the  burgomaster  if  he  ate  when  he  was  hungry, 
and  when  he  answered  in  the  affirmative,  I  said,  'You  may  then  use 
medicine,  which  is  God's  creature  as  much  as  food,  drink,  and  other 
bodily  necessities.' " — (The  Life  and  Letters  of  Martin  Luther.  By 
Preserved  Smith,  Ph.D.,  191 1,  pp.  327-328.) 

27.  "  Je  le  pansay  et  Dieu  le  guarit,"  quoted  by  A.  T.  Schofield, 
The  Force  of  Mind,  1908,  p.  176. 

28.  The  New  Church  Review,  vol.  XV,  1908,  pp.  415  f. 

29.  For  example  Percy  Dearmer,  Body  and  Soul,9 191 2,  pp.  174  f., 


FAITH-HEALING  307 

calmly  sets  the  "nature  miracles"  aside  as  "quite  exceptional 
occurrences,"  and  declares  that  it  may  be  safely  assumed  that  "it 
was  not  to  such  exceptional  occurrences  that  Christ  was  here  re- 
ferring." On  the  basis  of  Mark  6:7;  Luke  9  :  1,  10  :  1,  and  the 
nature  of  the  miracles  recorded  in  Acts,  he  asserts  that  "it  must 
have  been  clearly  understood  that  Christ  did  not  commission  His 
disciples  to  exercise  authority  over  the  powers  of  nature."  Mean- 
while, on  his  own  showing,  the  greatest  "works"  which  Christ  did 
were  these  "nature  miracles";  and  it  remains  inexplicable  how 
Faith-Healings  in  His  disciples  can  have  been  declared  by  Him  to 
be  greater  than  they. 

30.  So,  for  example,  Luthardt,  Godet,  Westcott  and  Milligan 
and  Moulton;  see  especially  the  discussion  in  W.  Milligan,  The 
Ascension  and  Heavenly  High-Priesthood  of  Our  Lord,  1892,  pp.  250  ff. 

31.  Op.  cit.,  pp.  16  ff. 

32.  P.  163. 

33.  As  cited. 

34.  A  very  little  consideration  will  suffice  to  show  that  these 
attempts  so  to  state  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement  as  to  obtain 
from  it  a  basis  on  which  a  doctrine  of  Faith-Healing  can  be  erected, 
betray  us  into  a  long  series  of  serious  errors.  They  imply,  for  ex- 
ample, that,  Christ  having  borne  our  sicknesses  as  our  substitute, 
Christians  are  not  to  bear  them,  and  accordingly  all  sickness  should 
be  banished  from  the  Christian  world;  Christians  are  not  to  be 
cured  of  sickness,  but  ought  not  to  get  sick.  They  imply  further, 
that,  this  being  so,  the  presence  of  sickness  is  not  only  a  proof  of 
sin,  but  argues  the  absence  of  the  faith  which  unites  us  to  Christ, 
our  Substitute,  that  is  saving  faith;  so  that  no  sick  person  can  be 
a  saved  man.  They  imply  still  further  that,  as  sickness  and  in- 
ward corruption  are  alike  effects  of  sin,  and  we  must  contend  that 
sickness,  because  it  is  an  effect  of  sin,  is  removed  completely  and 
immediately  by  the  atoning  act  of  Christ,  taking  away  sin,  so  must 
also  inward  corruption  be  wholly  and  at  once  removed;  no  Chris- 
tian can  be  a  sinner.  Thus  we  have  full-blown  "Perfectionism." 
Stanton  writes:  "In  so  far  as  the  soul  may  be  delivered  from  sin 
during  life,  the  body  may  be  delivered  from  sickness  and  disease, 
the  fruit  of  sin";  "in  short,  if  the  full  deliverance  of  the  soul  from 
sin  may  be  at  any  time  reached  on  this  side  of  death,  so  may  the 
body  be  freed  from  disease."  Perfectionism  and  Faith-Healing, 
on  this  ground,  stand  or  fall  together.  We  wonder  why,  in  his 
reasoning,  Stanton  leaves  believers  subject  to  death.  The  reason- 
ing which  proves  so  much  too  much,  proves,  of  course,  nothing  at 
aU. 


308  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V 

35.  Gordon  remarks:  "It  is  obvious  that  our  Redeemer  cannot 
forgive  and  eradicate  sin  without  in  the  same  act  disentangling  the 
roots  which  sin  has  struck  into  our  mortal  bodies."  Are  these 
three  terms  synonymous:  forgive  sin,  eradicate  sin,  disentangle  the 
roots  of  sin?  And  are  the  forgiveness  of  sin,  the  disentangling  of 
the  roots  of  sin,  the  eradication  of  sin,  all  accomplished  in  one 
"act"?  There  is  through  all  this  reasoning  a  hopeless  confusion 
of  the  steps  of  the  process  of  salvation  and  of  the  relations  of  the  sev- 
eral steps  to  one  another.  If  we  lay  down  the  proposition  that  our 
salvation  is  completed  in  a  single  act,  in  all  its  relations — why,  then, 
of  course,  we  are  not  in  process  of  salvation,  but  we  are  already 
wholly  saved. 

36.  Gordon,  op.  cit.,  p.  18. 

37.  The  New  Church  Review,  vol.  XV,  1908,  p.  414. 

38.  Here  is,  however,  one  illustration.  Doctor  Alfred  T.  Scho- 
field  (A  Study  of  Faith-Healing,  1872,  p.  38)  relates  the  following 
incident.  "Knowing  a  Christian  doctor,  favorable  to  faith-heal- 
ing, I  asked  him  if  he  could  tell  me  any  genuine  cures  of  organic 
disease.  But  he  only  shook  his  head.  .  .  .  The  principal  case  at 
the  faith-healing  centre  near  him  was  that  of  a  woman  who  was 
really  dying  and  had  continual  fits,  and  who,  the  doctor  said,  was 
indubitably  cured  by  faith.  Here,  then,  was  an  authenticated  case 
at  last  of  some  sort.  This  woman  gave  great  testimony  as  to  her 
cure  at  various  meetings,  but  as  she  had  been  my  friend's  patient, 
he  was  able  to  tell  me  the  secret  of  it.  God  had  cured  her  by  sav- 
ing her  soul,  and  thus  delivering  her  from  the  love  and  constant 
excessive  use  of  strong  drink  that  had  been  the  sole  cause  of  her 
illness  and  fits,  and  that  the  doctor  had  told  her  would  end  her 
life ! "  The  annals  of  faith-healing  are  rich  in  such  instances.  Doc- 
tor Schofield  records  a  touching  instance  (p.  42)  of  a  young  woman 
who,  by  trusting  in  the  Lord,  was  freed  from  a  nervous  terror  of 
the  sea,  and  gradually  from  other  disabilities.  / 

39.  Literature  and  Dogma,  chap.  v.  Arnold  bases  really  on  the 
notion  that  all  illness  is  due  to  sin  and  that  the  proper  method  of 
attacking  it  is,  therefore,  by  "moral  therapeutics."  Christ  as  the 
source  of  happiness  and  calm  cured  diseases  by  eliminating  their 
moral  cause;  hence  what  we  call  His  miracles,  which  were,  of  course, 
no  miracles  but  the  most  natural  effects  in  the  world;  "miracles 
do  not  happen." 

40.  P.  62. 

41.  P.  192. 

42.  Cf.  W.  W.  Patton,  Prayer  and  Its  Remarkable  Answers ; 
Being  a  Statement  of  Facts  in  the  Light  of  Reason  and  Revelation,  ed. 


FAITH-HEALING  309 

20,  1885,  pp.  214  ff.,  drawing  on  the  booklet,  Dorothea  Triidel,  or 
the  Prayer  of  Faith,  1865,  and  (pp.  237  ff.)  Doctor  Charles  Cullis's 
report  of  a  visit  to  Mannedorf. 

43.  Doctor  A.  T.  Schofield,  op.  cit.,  pp.  23  ff.,  who  gives  an  in- 
teresting account  of  a  visit  which  he  made  to  Zeller's  House  at 
Mannedorf.  He  found  that  very  many  came  there  for  rest  and 
quiet,  and  many  grew  no  better  while  there,  but  rather  worse.  He 
could  not,  on  inquiry  at  the  House  or  from  the  physicians  in  the 
town,  assure  himself  of  the  cure  there  of  any  truly  organic  disease; 
and  came  away  with  the  conviction  that  "the  bulk  at  any  rate  of 
the  cases  benefited  are  clearly  mental,  nervous,  and  hysterical" 
(p.  28). 

44.  Christian  Thought,  February,  1890,  p.  289.  Another  emi- 
nent physician,  J.  M.  Charcot  (The  New  Review,  1893,  vol.  VIII, 
p.  19),  writes:  "On  the  other  hand,  the  domain  of  faith-healing 
is  limited;  to  produce  its  effects  it  must  be  applied  to  those  cases 
which  demand  for  their  cure  no  intervention  beyond  the  power 
which  the  mind  has  over  the  body — cases  which  Hack  Tuke  (Illus- 
trations of  the  Influence  of  the  Mind  upon  the  Body  in  Health  and 
Disease,  designed  to  elucidate  the  Action  of  the  Imagination,  London: 
Churchill,  1872)  has  analyzed  so  admirably  in  his  remarkable  work. 
No  intervention  can  make  it  pass  these  bounds,  for  we  are  power- 
less against  natural  laws.  For  example,  no  instance  can  be  found 
amongst  the  records  sacred  to  so-called  miraculous  cures  where 
the  faith-cure  has  availed  to  restore  an  amputated  limb.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  are  hundreds  of  recorded  cases  of  the  cure  of 
paralysis,  but  I  think  these  have  all  partaken  of  the  nature  of  those 
which  Professor  Russell  Reynolds  has  classified  under  the  heading 
of  paralysis  'dependent  on  idea'  ('Remarks  on  Paralysis  and  other 
Disorders  of  Motion  and  Sensation  Dependent  on  Idea  .  .  .'  in 
British  Medical  Journal,  November,  1869)." 

45.  They  are  sufficiently  illustrated  by  J.  M.  Buckley,  Faith- 
Healing,  Christian  Science,  and  Kindred  Phenomena,  1892.  To  the 
account  of  Faith-Healing  by  the  Mormons,  which  he  gives  on  pp. 
35  ff.,  add  what  is  said  of  this  practice  among  the  Mormons  by 
Florence  A.  Merriam,  My  Summer  in  a  Mormon  Village,  pp.  115  ff.: 
"  To  an  outsider,  one  of  the  most  appalling  features  of  Mormonism 
is  the  rooted  opposition  of  the  people  to  Medical  Science,  their  dis- 
trust of  skilled  physicians,  and  their  faith  in  the  Biblical  ceremonial 
of  anointing  or  laying  on  of  hands.  .  .  ."  She  gives  some  instruc- 
tive instances.  Cf.  also  W.  A.  Hammond,  Spiritualism  and  Kin- 
dred Phenomena. 

46.  Buckley,  as  cited,  p.  3 ;  The  Century  Magazine,  vol.  X,  p.  222. 


310  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V 

47.  Buckley,  op.  cit.,  p.  27;  The  Century  Magazine,  vol.  X,  p. 
230. 

48.  Buckley,  Faith-Healing,  p.  25;  The  Century  Magazine,  vol.  X, 
p.  229. 

49.  Op.  ciL,  p.  25. 

50.  Buckley,  op.  cit.,  p.  9.  Cf.  A.  T.  Schofield,  The  Force  of 
Mind,  1908,  pp.  256  ff.  "Phantom  Tumors,"  says  Doctor  J.  R. 
Gasquet  {The  Dublin  Review,  October,  1894,  pp.  355,  356),  "de- 
ceive even  the  elect."  See  also  Doctor  Fowler's  paper,  "Neurotic 
Tumors  of  the  Breast,"  read  before  the  New  York  Neurological 
Society,  Tuesday,  January  7,  1890,  in  the  Medical  Record,  February 
19,  1890,  p.  179,  and  cf.  Charcot's  remarks  on  it,  op.  cit.,  p.  29. 
Doctor  Fowler's  tumors  were  actual,  not  "phantom,"  neurotic 
tumors,  and  yet,  on  being  subjected  to  a  course  of  treatment,  "in 
which,  so  to  speak,  the  psychical  element  was  made  the  chief  point, 
vanished  as  if  by  magic." 

51.  Reynolds,  op.  cit.,  pp.  325-326. 

52.  "Doctor  Cabot's  figures,"  derived  from  a  comparison  of  a 
test  series  of  instances  of  clinical  diagnoses  with  post-mortem  find- 
ings, have  become  famous.  In  this  test  "the  average  percentage 
of  correctness  of  these  diagnoses  in  these  cases,  taken  as  a  whole, 
was  47.3.  In  1913  the  Committee  of  Inquiry  into  the  Department 
of  Health,  Charities  and  Bellevue  and  Allied  Hospitals  in  the  City 
of  New  York  compared  the  autopsy  findings  in  Bellevue  Hospital 
with  the  clinical  diagnoses,  and  the  comparison  revealed  the  fact 
that  clinical  diagnoses  were  confirmed  in  only  52.3  per  cent  of  the 
cases."  Cf.  the  remarks  of  Doctor  Schofield,  op.  cit.,  pp.  39-40, 
on  the  difficulties  which  come  to  physicians  in  connection  with  cases 
of  alleged  faith-cure.  In  examining  into  a  case  of  reputed  tumor 
healed  at  once  on  faith,  he  wrote  to  the  physicians  who  had  charge 
of  the  case  and  learned  that  it  never  was  of  much  importance,  and 
that  it  had  not  disappeared  after  its  alleged  cure.  But  one  of  the 
physicians  added:  "I  am  sorry  I  am  not  able  to  answer  your  ques- 
tion more  satisfactorily.  As  a  Christian,  I  am  greatly  interested 
in  'faith-healing,'  but  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  wiser 
for  me  not  to  examine  patients,  or  pronounce  on  their  condition, 
when  they  state  that  the  Lord  has  healed  them,  for  I  feel  it  too 
solemn  a  thing  to  shake  a  person's  faith  by  too  critical  pathological 
knowledge." 

53.  Op.  cit.,  p.  158. 

54.  Buckley,  op.  cit.,  pp.  54-55;  The  Century  Magazine,  vol.  XI, 
p.  784. 

55.  These  citations  are  taken  from  L.  T.  Townsend,  Faith  Work, 


FAITH-HEALING  311 

Christian  Science  and  Other  Cures,  pp.  160  ff.,  where  the  matter  is 
discussed  at  large. 

56.  P.  196. 

57.  Pp.  197-198. 

58.  Cf.  G.  M.  Pachtler,  Biographische  Notizen  iiber  .  .  .  Prinzen 
Alexander,  Augsburg,  1850;  S.  Brunner,  Aus  dem  Nachlasse  des 
Fiirsten  .  .  .  Hohenlohe,  Regensburg,  1851;  F.  N.  Baur,  A  Short 
and  Faithful  Description  of  the  Remarkable  Occurrences  and  Benev- 
olent Holy  Conduct  of  .  .  .  Prince  Alexander  of  Hohenlohe  .  .  . 
during  his  residence  of  Twenty-five  Days  in  the  City  of  Wiirzburg  .  .  ., 
London,  1822;  John  Badeley,  Authentic  Narrative  of  the  Extraor- 
dinary Cure  performed  by  Prince  Hohenlohe,  London,  n.  d. ;  James 
Doyle,  Miracles  said  to  have  been  wrought  by  Prince  Hohenlohe  on 
Miss  Lalor  in  Ireland,  London,  1823. 

59.  Cf.  J.  F.  Maguire,  Father  Matthew,  1864. 

60.  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  p.  113,  note;  Blum- 
hardt  is  spoken  of  by  James  as  a  "singularly  pure,  simple  and  non- 
fanatical  character,"  who  "in  this  part  of  his  work  followed  no 
previous  example."  His  life  was  written  by  F.  Zundel,  Pfarrer 
J.  C.  Blumhardt,  1887;  see  a  short  notice  with  Bibliography,  in  The 
New  Schaff-Herzog  Encyclopedia  of  Religious  Knowledge,  sub.  nom. 
(II,  206). 

61.  See  The  New  Schaff-Herzog,  sub.  nom.,  and  sub.  voc,  "  Chris- 
tian and  Missionary  Alliance." 

62.  See  C.  W.  Heisler,  "Denver's  Messiah  Craze,"  in  The  In- 
dependent, October  3,  1895;  Henry  Kingman,  "Franz  Schlatter  and 
his  Power  over  Disease,"  in  The  Congregationalist,  November  1, 
1895.  The  New  York  daily  press  for  the  late  summer  and  early 
autumn  of  1916  (e.  g.,  The  Evening  Sun  for  September  28)  tells  of 
the  sordid  final  stages  of  Schlatter's  "practice." 

63.  There  are  articles  on  Dowie  and  on  the  Christian  Catholic 
Apostolic  Church  in  Zion  in  The  New  Schaff-Herzog  Encyclopedia, 
to  the  latter  of  which  a  full  Bibliography  is  attached.  To  this 
Bibliography  we  may  add  Annie  L.  Muzzie,  "One  Man's  Mission. 
True  or  False ? "  in  The  Independent,  September  17,  1896;  "New 
Sects  and  Old,"  chap,  xn  of  "Religious  Life  in  America,"  by  E. 
H.  Abbott,  Outlook,  September  15,  1902,  and  afterwards  published 
in  book  form;  James  Orr,  "Dowie  and  Mrs.  Eddy,"  London  Quar- 
terly Review,  April,  1904. 

64.  See  an  analysis  of  Dowie's  healing  work  in  American  Journal 
of  Psychology,  X,  pp.  442,  465. 

65.  The  literature  of  Faith-Healing  is  very  extensive.  We 
mention  only,  along  with  Doctor  Gordon's  Ministry  of  Healing, 


312  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V 

among  its  advocates:  George  Morris,  Our  Lord's  Permanent  Healing 
Office  in  His  Church;  W.  E.  Boardman,  The  Great  Physician;  The 
Lord  That  Eealeth  Thee,  1881;  and  Faith  Work  under  Doctor  Cullis 
in  Boston;  A.  B.  Simpson,  The  Gospel  of  Healing,  1884;  The  Holy 
Spirit  or  Power  from  on  High,  1899;  and  Discovery  of  Divine  Heal- 
ing, 1902.  The  doctrines  involved  are  discussed  by  A.  A.  Hodge, 
Popular  Lectures  on  Theological  Themes,  1887,  pp.  107-116;  cf. 
also  A.  F.  Schauffler,  The  Century  Magazine,  December,  1885, 
pp.  274  ff.  The  whole  question  is  admirably  canvassed  in  L.  T. 
Townsend,  Faith  Work,  Christian  Science  and  Other  Cures,  1885; 
J.  M.  Buckley,  Faith-Healing,  Christian  Science  and  Kindred 
Phenomena,  1892;  A.  T.  Schofield,  A  Study  of  Faith-Healing,  1892; 
W.  S.  Plummer  Bryan,  Prayer  and  the  Healing  of  Disease,  1896; 
W.  R.  Hall,  "Divine  Healing  or  Faith-cure,"  Lutheran  Quarterly, 
New  Series,  vol.  XXVII  (1897),  pp.  263-276.  The  literatures 
attached  to  the  articles,  "Faith-healing,"  in  Hastings's  Encyclopedia 
of  Religion  and  Ethics,  and  "Psychotherapy,"  in  The  New  Schajf- 
Herzog  Encyclopedia  of  Religious  Knowledge,  will  suggest  the  works 
on  the  action  of  the  mind  on  the  body.  P.  Dearmer's  Body  and 
Soul.  An  Inquiry  into  the  effects  of  Religion  upon  Health,  with  a 
Description  of  Christian  Work  of  Healing  from  the  New  Testament 
to  the  Present  Day,  1909  (9th  ed.,  191 2),  deserves  perhaps  special 
mention,  as  presenting  the  matter  from  a  high  Anglican  standpoint, 
and  on  the  basis  of  pantheizing  theories  of  being  which  leave  no 
room  for  real  miracles,  whether  in  the  records  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment or  in  the  healings  of  subsequent  times.  See  also  J.  M.  Char- 
cot, "The  Faith-cure,"  in  The  New  Review,  VIII  (1893),  pp.  18-31, 
which  discusses  the  matter,  however,  with  Lourdes  particularly  in 
mind. 

NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI 

MIND-CURE 

i.  Intermediate  positions  are,  of  course,  possible  in  the  abstract, 
in  which  the  cure  is  ascribed  both  to  faith  and  to  God  acting  re- 
inforcingly  or  supplementary.  But  these  possible  abstract  points 
of  view  may  be  safely  left  out  of  account. 

2.  Ecclus.  38  :  1  ff. 

3.  This  is,  of  course,  the  common  representation.  Thus,  for 
example:  H.  H.  Goddard,  The  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  vol. 
X,  1898-1899,  p.  432:  "As  a  matter  of  fact  the  principle  is  as  old 
as  human  history";  H.  R.  Marshall,  The  Hibbert  Journal,  vol.  VII, 
1909,  p.  293 :  "Were  the  complete  history  of  medical  science  written, 


MIND-CURE  313 

it  would  without  doubt  appear  that  the  treatment  of  disease  through 
what  seems  to  be  mental  influences  has  prevailed  in  one  form  or 
another  ever  since  man  began  to  realize  that  certain  illnesses  are 
curable." 

4.  How  little  they  can  be  ascribed  to  it  has  been  shown  by 
R.  J.  Ryle,  in  an  article  entitled  "The  Neurotic  Theory  of  the 
Miracles  of  Healing,"  in  The  Hibbert  Journal,  vol.  V,  April,  1907, 
pp.  572-586. 

5.  Sir  William  Osier,  The  Treatment  of  Disease,  1909,  speaks  of 
the  necessity  in  all  cases  of  "suggestion  in  one  of  its  varied  forms 
— whether  the  negation  of  disease  and  pain,  the  simple  trust  in 
Christ  of  the  Peculiar  People,  or  the  sweet  reasonableness  of  the 
psychotherapist."  Cf.  especially  William  James,  The  Varieties  of 
Religious  Experience,21  1911,  pp.  712  ff.;  Stephen  Paget,  The  Faith 
and  Works  of  Christian  Science,  1909,  pp.  204  ff.;  Henry  H.  God- 
dard,  The  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  vol.  X,  1 898-1 899,  p.  481. 
That  this  is  not  the  account  given  by  the  practitioners  themselves 
lies  in  the  nature  of  the  case.  Consult,  e.  g.,  C.  H.  Lea,  A  Plea  for 
.  .  .  Christian  Science,2  191 5,  pp.  xv,  70  ff.,  who  appeals  to  "an 
ever-operative  principle  of  good,  or  spiritual  law,  underlying  all  life 
which  is  here  and  now  available  for  all  mankind."  For  that  matter 
consult  Elwood  Worcester,  Religion  and  Medicine,  p.  72;  on  pp.  67  ff. 
Worcester  speaks  quite  in  the  spirit  of  the  Spiritual  Healers  spoken 
of  above. 

6.  Samuel  McComb,  The  Christian  Religion  as  a  Healing  Power, 
1909,  p.  117:  "It  does  not  believe  that  its  cures  are  due  to  any 
miraculous  agency  .  .  .";  Religion  and  Medicine,  1908,  p.  311: 
"We  dare  not  pray  to  God  to  work  a  miracle,  that  is,  to  violate  one 
of  those  general  laws  by  which  He  rules  the  physical  world." 

7.  Religion  and  Medicine,  p.  14,  note;  The  Christian  Religion 
as  a  Healing  Power,  p.  99. 

8.  The  Christian  Religion  as  a  Healing  Power,  p.  39.  The  rem- 
edy which  Wesley  proposed,  however,  was  not  that  the  minister 
should  turn  physician,  but  that  the  physician  should  become  Chris- 
tian: "It  follows,"  he  writes,  "that  no  man  can  be  a  thorough 
physician  without  being  an  experienced  Christian." 

9.  McComb  says  expressly,  The  Christian  Religion  as  a  Healing 
Power,  p.  92:  "In  many  instances  it  does  not  matter  what  the 
object  of  the  faith  may  be;  it  is  not  the  object  but  the  faith  that 
heals."  The  matter  is  more  fully  stated  in  Religion  and  Medicine, 
p.  293:  "Faith  simply  as  a  psychical  process,  or  mental  attitude 
.  .  .  has  healing  virtue";  "Faith  as  a  mere  mental  state  has  this 
power" — in  accordance  with  Feuchterleben's  saying,  "Confidence 


314  NOTES   TO  LECTURE  VI 

acts  like  a  real  force."  Elwood  Worcester,  p.  57,  agrees  with  his 
colleague.  Of  course  it  is  allowed  that  if  we  are  seeking  moral  as 
well  as  physical  effects  it  is  better  that  the  faith  employed  should 
have  God  rather  than  Mumbo-jumbo  for  its  object.  The  plane 
on  which  McComb's  chapter  on  "Prayer  and  Its  Therapeutic 
Value"  (Religion  and  Medicine,  pp.  302-319)  moves  is  the  same. 
The  therapeutic  value  of  prayer  resides  in  its  subjective  effects. 
As  it  is  clearly  stated  in  a  leading  article  in  the  British  Medical 
Journal  for  June  18,  1910:  "Prayer  inspired  by  a  living  faith  is  a 
force  acting  within  the  patient,  which  places  him  in  the  most  favor- 
able condition  for  the  stirring  of  the  pool  of  hope  that  lies,  still  and 
hidden  it  may  be,  in  the  depths  of  human  nature."  McComb  does 
not  utterly  exclude  the  prayer  of  desire  or  deny  that  it  has  an  effect 
on  God;  even,  if  it  be  a  desire  in  behalf  of  others,  an  effect  on  them. 
We  are  organically  related  to  God,  he  says:  "We  exist  in  Him 
spiritually  somewhat  as  thoughts  exist  in  the  mind,"  and  "a  strong 
desire  in  our  soul  communicates  itself  to  Him  and  engages  His 
attention  just  as  a  thought  in  our  soul  engages  ours."  God  may 
resist  this  desire  of  ours,  thus  entering  His  consciousness;  but  "the 
stronger  the  thought,  the  more  frequently  it  returns,  the  more 
likely  it  is  to  be  acted  upon."  If  now  we  have  a  desire  in  behalf  of 
others,  "our  soul  not  only  acts  on  that  soul,"  telepathically  we  sup- 
pose, "but  our  prayer  arising  to  the  mind  of  God  directs  His  will 
more  powerfully  and  more  constantly  to  the  soul  for  which  we 
pray."  This  is  very  ingenious  and  very  depressing.  We  hope 
there  is  no  truth  in  it. 

10.  The  Christian  Religion  as  a  Healing  Power,  p.  10.  The 
leaders  of  the  Emmanuel  Movement  are  very  insistent  that  the 
Christianity  which  they  employ  is  that  of  the  "critical  interpreta- 
tion" of  the  New  Testament. 

11.  It  seems  almost  as  difficult  for  clerics  to  recognize  frankly 
the  limits  of  their  functions  as  spiritual  guides  with  respect  to  medi- 
cine, as  with  respect  to  the  state.  They  repeatedly  show  a  tendency 
not  only  to  intrude  into  but  to  seek  to  dominate  the  one  alien 
sphere  as  the  other.  Andrew  D.  White,  A  History  of  the  Warfare 
of  Science  with  Theology  in  Christendom,  1896,  II,  p.  37,  recounts 
how  the  mediaeval  church  sought  to  secure  that  physicians  should 
always  practise  their  art  in  conjunction  with  ecclesiastics.  Pius 
V  ordered  "that  all  physicians  before  administering  treatment 
should  call  in  'a  physician  of  the  soul,'  on  the  ground,  as  he  de- 
clares, that  'bodily  infirmity  frequently  arises  from  sin.'"  Clear 
differentiation  of  functions — "division  of  labor"  the  economists 
call  it — lies  in  the  line  of  advance. 


MIND-CURE  315 

12.  The  Christian  Religion  as  a  Healing  Power,  p.  99.  See  above, 
note  7. 

13.  These  citations  are  derived  from  Medicine  and  the  Church, 
edited  by  Geoffrey  Rhodes,  1910,  pp.  35,  64,  73.  Cf.  what  Stephen 
Paget  says  on  the  general  question  in  The  Faith  and  Works  of  Chris- 
tian Science,  1909,  pp.  180-190. 

14.  The  primary  literature  on  the  Emmanuel  Movement  is 
comprised  in  the  two  books  by  its  founders:  El  wood  Worcester, 
Samuel  McComb,  Isador  H.  Coriat,  Religion  and  Medicine,  the 
Moral  Control  of  Nervous  Disorders,  1908;  and  El  wood  Worcester, 
Samuel  McComb,  The  Christian  Religion  as  a  Healing  Power:  A 
Defense  and  Exposition  of  the  Emmanuel  Movement,  1909.  See  also 
Robert  MacDonald,  Mind,  Religion  and  Health,  with  an  Apprecia- 
tion of  the  Emmanuel  Movement,  1909;  C.  R.  Brown,  Faith  and 
Health,  1910.  A  very  good  criticism  of  the  movement  will  be  found 
in  the  article  by  Doctor  Henry  Rutgers  Marshall,  on  "Psycho- 
therapeutics and  Religion,"  in  The  Hibbert  Journal,  January,  1909, 
vol.  Ill,  pp.  295-313.  The  most  recent  literature  includes:  Loring 
W.  Batten,  The  Relief  of  Pain  by  Mental  Suggestion,  191 7;  Isador 
H.  Coriat,  What  is  Psychoanalysis?  191 7. 

15.  Hastings's  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics,  vol.  V,  p. 
700b.  He  has  explained  himself  more  at  large  in  his  book  Spiritual 
Healing,  London,  1914,  and  quite  in  this  sense.  But  a  certain 
amount  of  ambiguity  in  this  matter  is  not  unnatural,  and  may  be 
met  with  in  many  writers.  Elwood  Worcester,  for  example,  gives 
expression  occasionally  to  a  mystical  theory  which  assimilates  him 
to  the  theory  of  spiritual  healing  described  by  Cobb  (e.  g.,  Religion 
and  Medicine,  pp.  67  ff.).  On  the  other  hand,  Percy  Dearmer 
(Body  and  Soul,9  1912,  p.  318),  who  also  holds  to  a  mystical  theory 
of  the  universe,  must  be  classed  distinctly  as  an  advocate  of  "Mind- 
cure";  although  he  lays  all  the  stress  on  religion,  and  refers  every- 
thing to  God  as  the  ultimate  actor,  he  yet  is  thoroughly  naturalistic 
in  his  analysis.  "All  power  is  of  God,"  he  says,  " — whether  it  be 
electricity  or  neurokym,  or  grace;  and  to  him  who  does  not  believe 
in  God,  all  power  must  be  left  unexplained.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  high  power  of  religion  can  quite  fairly  be  called  mental;  no  one 
would  be  less  ready  to  deny  this  than  the  Christian  for  whom,  as  I 
have  said,  the  very  operations  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  his  gifts  and  his 
fruits,  are  mental  phenomena  which  are  habitually  obtained  in  a 
lower  form  without  the  special  aid  of  religion.  There  is  no  ultimate 
barrier  then  between  what  is  sacred  and  what  is  secular,  since  all 
things  come  of  God  and  of  his  own  do  we  give  him;  the  difference 
is  one  of  degree  and  not  of  kind." 


316  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI 

1 6.  Two  other  important  movements,  tracing  their  impulse 
back  to  P.  P.  Quimby,  deserve  mention  here — the  "Mind-cure 
Movement,"  the  best  representative  of  which  is  probably  Warren 
F.  Evans;  and  the  "New  Thought  Movement,"  the  best  represen- 
tative of  which  is  probably  Horatio  W.  Dresser.  William  James, 
The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,21  191 1,  pp.  94  ff.,  gives  an 
adequate  account  of  the  "New  Thought  Movement";  a  good  brief 
account  of  both  streams  of  development  will  be  found  in  Frank 
Podmore,  Mesmerism  and  Christian  Science,  1909,  pp.  255  ff. 
Some  details  of  W.  F.  Evans's  career  may  be  found  in  McClure's 
Magazine,  vol.  XXX,  pp.  390  ff.  A  useful  bibliography  of  out-of- 
the-way  books  on  "New  Thought"  is  given  in  The  New  Schajf- 
Herzog  Encyclopedia,  vol.  VIII,  p.  148,  but  the  best  books  are  missed. 
See,  especially,  Horatio  W.  Dresser,  Handbook  of  New  Thought,  1917. 

17.  "The  truth,  therefore,  about  Christian  Science,"  says  W. 
F.  Cobb  (Mysticism  and  the  Creed,  1914,  p.  316),  "seems  to  be  that 
the  power  displayed  in  the  cures  which  it  indubitably  performs  is 
not  peculiar  to  it,  that  is,  is  not  Christian  Science  at  all,  but  that 
which  is  its  peculiar  glory  is  the  bad  philosophy  by  which  it  seeks 
to  set  forth  the  power  which  comes  from  the  Spirit,  and  is  under 
the  guardianship  of  religion." 

18.  "Many  imagine,"  she  says,  Science  and  Health,  161st  ed., 
1899,  p.  xi,  "that  the  phenomena  of  physical  healing  in  Christian 
Science  only  present  a  phase  of  the  action  of  the  human  mind, 
which,  in  some  unexplained  way,  results  in  the  cure  of  sickness." 
This,  she  declares,  is  by  no  means  the  case.  She  condemns  the 
several  books  "on  mental  healing"  which  have  come  under  her 
notice  as  wrong  and  misleading,  precisely  because  "they  regard  the 
human  mind  as  a  healing  agent,  whereas  this  mind  is  not  a  factor 
in  the  Principle  of  Christian  Science"  (p.  x).  The  phrase  "human 
mind"  in  passages  like  this  probably  is  to  be  read  as  equivalent  to 
"mortal  mind,"  a  cant  phrase  in  the  system,  as,  for  example,  on  p. 
303:  "History  teaches  that  the  popular  and  false  notions  about 
the  Divine  Being  and  character  have  originated  in  the  human 
mind.  As  there  really  is  no  mortal  mind,  this  wrong  notion  about 
God  must  have  originated  in  a  false  supposition,  not  in  immortal 
Mind."  This  "mortal  mind,"  we  are  told  (p.  45),  "claims  to  govern 
every  organ  of  the  mortal  body,"  but  the  claim  is  false;  "the  Divine 
Mind"  is  the  true  governor.  There  "really  is  no  mortal  mind." 
Of  course  this  distinction  between  mind-cure  and  Mind-cure  is  not 
maintained,  and  endless  confusion  results.  Thus  the  Christian  Sci- 
ence writer  quoted  in  the  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  X,  p. 
433,  in  the  same  breath  repudiates  the  ascription  of  their  healings 


MIND-CURE  317 

to  a  "material,  mental  or  bodily  cause,"  and  affirms  that  "the  only 
agency  ever  effective  in  curing  diseases  is  some  faculty  of  mind." 

19.  Science  and  Health,  1899,  p.  xi;  cf.  p.  5:  "Christian  Science 
is  natural  but  not  physical.  The  true  Science  of  God  and  man  is 
no  more  supernatural  than  is  the  science  of  numbers";  p.  249:  " Mir- 
acles are  impossible  in  Science."  Even  the  resurrection  of  Christ 
was  not  supernatural:  "Can  it  be  called  supernatural  for  the  God 
of  nature  to  sustain  Jesus,  in  his  proof  of  man's  truly  derived  power  ? 
It  was  a  method  of  surgery  beyond  material  art,  but  it  was  not  a 
supernatural  act.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  a  distinctly  natural 
act  .  .  ."  (p.  349).  "Mary  Baker  Eddy,"  says  a  writer  in  the 
Christian  Science  Journal  for  April,  1889,  "has  worked  out  before 
us  as  on  a  blackboard  every  point  in  the  temptations  and  demon- 
strations— or  so-called  Miracles — of  Jesus,  showing  us  how  to  meet 
and  overcome  the  one,  and  how  to  perform  the  other."  All  is 
natural  in  Mrs.  Eddy's  universe. 

20.  The  Christian  Religion  as  a  Healing  Power,  p.  19. 

21.  Christian  Thought,  February,  1890. 

22.  On  "the  pedigree  of  Christian  Science,"  see  the  admirable 
article  under  that  title  by  Frank  Podmore  in  The  Contemporary  Re- 
view for  January,  1909,  vol.  XCV,  pp.  37-49;  and,  of  course,  more 
at  large,  Frank  Podmore,  Mesmerism  and  Christian  Science  :  a  Short 
History  of  Mental  Healing,  1909. 

23.  Mrs.  Eddy  herself  speaks  with  contempt  of  Faith-Healing 
as  "one  belief  casting  out  another — a  belief  in  the  unknown  casting 
out  a  belief  in  disease."  "It  is  not  Truth  itself  which  does  this," 
she  declares;  "nor  is  it  the  human  understanding  of  the  divine  heal- 
ing Principle"  (Science  and  Health,  1899,  p.  317). 

24.  These  admissions  are  greatly  modified  in  Science  and  Health, 
1899,  p.  397.  Here  it  is  taught,  as  the  Index  puts  it,  that  faith- 
cure  "often  soothes  but  only  changes  the  form  of  the  ailment." 
"Faith  removes  bodily  ailments  for  a  season;  or  else  it  changes 
those  ills  into  new  and  more  difficult  forms  of  disease,  until  at 
length  the  Science  of  Mind  comes  to  the  rescue  and  works  a  radical 
cure." 

25.  Christian  Science  Healing,  its  Principles  and  Practice,  1888, 
p.  102. 

26.  Retrospection  and  Introspection,17  1900,  p.  38  (first  printed 
in  1891). 

27.  Ibid.  In  Science  and  Health,  1899,  p.  107,  she  writes:  "In 
the  year  1866  I  discovered  the  Christ  Science  or  divine  laws  of  Life, 
Truth  and  Love,  and  named  my  discovery  Christian  Science.  God 
had  been  graciously  preparing  me  during  many  years  for  the  re- 


318  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI 

ception  of  this  final  revelation  of  the  absolute  divine  Principle  of 
scientific  mental  healing." 

28.  Mrs.  Eddy's  relations  to  P.  P.  Quimby  have  been  made 
quite  clear  and  placed  on  a  firm  basis  by  Georgine  Milmine  in  a  series 
of  articles  published  in  McClure's  Magazine  for  1907-1908,  and 
afterward  in  book  form,  The  Life  of  Mary  Baker  G.  Eddy  and  the 
History  of  Christian  Science,  1909;  and  by  Lyman  P.  Powell,  Chris- 
tian Science,  the  Faith  and  its  Founder,  1907;  see  also  Frank  Pod- 
more,  Mesmerism  and  Christian  Science,  1909,  chap,  xiv,  "The  Rise 
of  Mental  Healing,"  and  Annetta  Gertrude  Dresser,  The  Philosophy 
of  P.  P.  Quimby,  1895.  Quimby's  fundamental  principle  is  summed 
up  in  his  conviction  that  the  cause  and  cure  of  disease  lie  in  mental 
states.  His  practice  was  to  talk  with  his  patients  about  their 
diseases,  to  explain  to  them  that  disease  is  an  error,  and  to  "estab- 
lish the  truth  in  its  place,  which,  if  done,  was  the  cure."  "I  give 
no  medicines,"  he  says,  "I  simply  sit  by  the  patient's  side  and  ex- 
plain to  him  what  he  thinks  is  his  disease,  and  my  explanation  is 
the  cure;  .  .  .  the  truth  is  the  cure."  "My  way  of  curing,"  he 
writes  in  1862,  the  year  in  which  Mrs.  Eddy  went  to  him  as  a  pa- 
tient, "convinces  him  (the  patient)  that  he  has  been  deceived; 
and,  if  I  succeed,  the  patient  is  cured."  The  Pantheistic  back- 
ground appears  to  have  been  less  prominently  thrust  forward  by 
Quimby  than  by  Mrs.  Eddy,  and  it  would  seem  that  her  "dis- 
covery" consists  wholly  in  this  possible  change  of  emphasis. 

29.  This  is  sufficiently  characteristic  to  deserve  emphasis.  Mrs. 
Eddy  (who  describes  herself  as  "the  tireless  toiler  for  the  truth's 
new  birth")  ever  assumed  the  r61e  of  thinker  and  teacher  rather 
than  of  healer;  the  healing  she  delegated  to  her  pupils.  "I  have 
never  made  a  specialty  of  treating  disease,"  she  writes,  "but  heal- 
ing has  accompanied  all  my  efforts  to  introduce  Christian  Science." 
By  taking  the  course  she  did,  she  understood  herself  to  be  assum- 
ing the  more  difficult  task:  "Healing,"  she  said,  "is  easier  than 
teaching,  if  the  teaching  is  faithfully  done"  (Science  and  Health, 
1899,  p.  372).  She  was  accustomed  to  print  at  the  end  of  the 
preface  to  Science  and  Health  this:  "Note. — The  author  takes  no 
patients  and  declines  medical  consultation."  Nevertheless,  in  a 
by-law  of  1903,  she  declares  "healing  better  than  teaching"  (Mc- 
Clure's Magazine,  May,  1908,  p.  28). 

30.  The  Christian  Scientist  writer  quoted  in  the  American  Jour- 
nal of  Psychology,  vol.  X,  p.  436,  declares  with  great  emphasis: 
"The  only  text-book  of  genuine,  unadulterated  Christian  Science 
is  Science  and  Health,  with  Key  to  the  Scriptures,  by  Rev.  Mary 
Baker  Eddy."     Mr.  Bailey,  editor  of  the  Christian  Science  Journal, 


MIND-CURE  319 

wrote  that  he  considered  "  the  Bible  and  Science  and  Health  as  one 
book — the  sacred  Scriptures." 

31.  Science  and  Health,  1899,  p.  4. 

32.  Christian  Science  Journal,  January,  1901:  cf.  Miscellaneous 
Writings,  p.  311:  "The  words  I  have  written  on  Christian  Science 
contain  absolute  Truth.  ...  I  was  a  scribe  under  orders,  and  who 
can  refrain  from  transcribing  what  God  indites?" 

33.  In  the  Christian  Science  Journal,  April,  1895,  Mrs.  Eddy 
abolished  preaching  and  ordained  that  the  service  should  be  as 
here  described.  "In  1895,"  she  says,  "I  ordained  the  Bible  and 
Science  and  Health,  with  Key  to  the  Scriptures,  as  the  Pastor,  on  this 
planet,  of  all  the  churches  of  the  Christian  Science  denomination" 
{McClure's  Magazine,  May,  1908,  p.  25). 

34.  This  was  not  the  original  order,  but  was  subsequently  in- 
troduced. 

35.  Mrs.  Eddy  says  in  the  Christian  Science  Journal  for  March, 
1897:  "The  Bible,  Science  and  Health,  with  Key  to  the  Scriptures, 
and  my  other  published  works  are  the  only  proper  instructions  for 
this  hour.  It  shall  be  the  duty  of  all  Christian  Scientists  to  circulate 
and  to  sell  as  many  of  these  books  as  they  can." 

36.  G.  C.  Mars,  The  Interpretation  of  Life,  in  which  is  shown  the 
relation  of  Modem  Culture  and  Christian  Science,  1908.  It  is  related 
that  Mrs.  Eddy  herself,  with,  no  doubt,  a  rare  display  of  humor, 
said  once  that  Bronson  Alcott,  on  reading  Science  and  Health,  pro- 
nounced that  no  one  but  a  woman  or  a  fool  could  have  written 
it  {McClure's  Magazine,  August,  1897,  p.  47). 

37.  The  Dublin  Review,  July,  1908,  vol.  CXLIII,  p.  62. 

38.  P.  N.  F.  Young,  The  Interpreter,  October,  1908,  vol.  V,  p.  91. 

39.  So  say  many  of  the  readers  of  the  book  with  serio-comic 
emphasis;  see  three  such  expositions  of  the  effect  of  trying  to  read 
it  given  in  Stephen  Paget's  The  Faith  and  Works  of  Christian  Science, 
pp.  205  ff. 

40.  McClure's  Magazine  for  October,  1907,  p.  699. 

41.  God,  says  Mrs.  Eddy,  in  Science  and  Health,  ed.  1875,  "is 
Principle,  not  Person";  God,  she  says,  in  ed.  1881,  I,  p.  167;  II,  p. 
97,  "is  not  a  person,  God  is  Principle";  God,  she  says  still  in  No 
and  Yes,  1906,  "is  Love,  and  Love  is  Principle,  not  person."  In 
later  editions  of  Science  and  Health  the  asperity  of  the  assertion  is 
somewhat  softened  without  any  change  of  meaning,  e.  g.,  ed.  1899, 
p.  10:  "If  the  term  personality  applied  to  God  means  infinite  per- 
sonality, then  God  is  personal  Being — in  this  sense,  but  not  in  the 
lowest  sense,"  i.  e.,  in  the  sense  of  individuality  {cf.  what  is  said 
on  the  supposition  that  God  should  be  spoken  of  as  person  on  p. 


320  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI 

510).  The  entry  in  the  Index  referring  to  this  passage  (p.  10)  is 
phrased  simply,  "Person,  God  is  not";  and  throughout  the  text 
God  is  represented  not  as  "Person"  but  as  "Principle."  To  ap- 
proach God  in  the  prayer  of  petition  is  to  "humanize"  Him. 
"Prayer  addressed  to  a  person  prevents  our  letting  go  of  person- 
ality for  the  impersonal  Spirit  to  whom  all  things  are  possible" 
(ed.  1875).  The  whole  foundation  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  theory  and  prac- 
tice alike  was  denial  of  the  personality  of  God;  see  the  curious 
deposition  printed  in  McClure's  Magazine,  1907,  p.  103,  bearing 
that  this  denial  was  made  by  Mrs.  Eddy  the  condition  of  entrance 
into  her  classes.  "There  is  really  nothing  to  understand  in  Science 
and  Health,"  says  Wiggin  truly,  "except  that  God  is  all."  That  is 
the  beginning  and  middle  and  end  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  philosophy. 
Accordingly,  the  writer  in  the  Christian  Science  Sentinel  for  Septem- 
ber 25,  1907,  p.  57,  quoted  by  Powell,  Christian  Science,  p.  242,  is 
quite  right  when  she  declares:  "principle  and  not  personality  is 
the  only  foundation  upon  which  we  can  build  safely." 

42.  Ed.  1875;  in  ed.  1899,  p.  3:  "the  divine  Mind  and  idea"; 
cf.  p.  8:  "In  Science  Mind  is  one — including  noumena  and  phe- 
nomena, God  and  His  thoughts,"  i.  e.,  everything.  Accordingly, 
C.  H.  Lea,  A  Plea  for  .  .  .  Christian  Science,  p.  23,  says:  "The 
individual  man  is  a  part  of  God,  in  the  sense  that  a  ray  of  light  is  a 
part  of  the  sun." 

43.  Ed.  1905,  p.  331. 

44.  Ed.  1899,  p.  7. 
45-  Op.  ciL,  p.  23. 
46.     P.  74. 

47-     P.  81. 

48.  P.  412. 

49.  It  is  these  "cross  currents,"  we  are  told,  which  form  the 
chief  difficulty  in  the  way  of  Christian  Science  practice.  Mrs. 
Carrie  Snider  even  reports  in  The  Journal  of  Christian  Science 
(McClure's  Magazine,  1907,  pp.  692-693)  the  case  of  her  husband, 
who,  being  "under  the  treatment  of  two  healers,  whose  minds  were 
not  in  accord,"  was  caught  in  this  cross  current  and  died,  or,  as 
Mrs.  Eddy  would  express  it,  "showed  the  manifestation  of  the 
death  symptoms"  ("symptoms"  themselves  being  "shadows  of 
belief").  "The  thought  from  the  one,"  explains  Miss  Milmine, 
"confused  thought  from  the  other,  leaving  him  to  die  in  the  cross- 
fire." The  interested  reader  will  find  the  precepts  of  Elwood 
Worcester  on  "Suggestion"  (Religion  and  Medicine,  p.  64)  running 
very  closely  parallel  to  Mrs.  Eddy's  on  all  such  matters:  "It  is 
necessary  as  far  as  possible  to  guard  against  counter-suggestions"; 


MIND-CURE  321 

"suggestions  .  .  .  contained  in  books  are  often  of  great  curative 
value";  "in  order  to  avoid  the  danger  of  opposition  and  counter- 
suggestion  some  practitioners  prefer  to  treat  the  patient  silently." 

50.  Medicine  and  the  Church,  edited  by  Geoffrey  Rhodes,  1910, 

P-  293- 

51.  Sin  is,  of  course,  in  Mrs.  Eddy's  system,  like  disease,  an 
illusion;  there  is  no  such  thing.  "The  belief"  of  it  is  in  the  be- 
ginning "an  unconscious  error"  (ed.  1899,  p.  81),  it  "exists  only  so 
long  as  the  material  illusion  remains"  (p.  207),  and  what  "must 
die"  is  "not  the  sinful  soul"  but  "the  sense  of  sin"  (ibid.).  It  is 
amusing  to  observe  as  we  read  Science  and  Health,  how  often,  in  the 
preoccupation  with  sickness  as  the  thing  from  which  we  look  to 
Christian  Science  for  relief,  sin  comes  in  as  an  afterthought.  The 
book  itself,  it  is  to  be  noticed,  is  a  treatise  on  " Science  and  Health"; 
and  what  the  author  professes  to  have  discovered  is  "  the  adapta- 
tion of  Truth  to  the  treatment  of  disease" — to  which  is  added,  plainly 
as  an  afterthought,  "as  well  as  of  sin."  "The  question  of  What  is 
Truth,"  she  adds  in  the  next  paragraph,  "is  answered  by  demon- 
stration— by  healing  disease" — "and  sin"  she  adds  again  as  an 
afterthought.  Consequently  she  goes  on  to  say,  "This  shows  that 
Christian  healing  confers  the  most  health,"  "and,"  she  adds  weakly, 
"makes  the  best  men."  This  preoccupation  with  sickness  rather 
than  sin  is  grounded,  no  doubt,  in  part,  in  the  historical  genesis  of 
the  system  and  of  the  book  in  which  it  is  presented.  It  was  not  as 
a  religious  leader  but  as  a  healer  that  Mrs.  Eddy  came  forward, 
treading  in  the  footsteps  of  Quimby,  who  was  not  a  religious  leader 
but  a  healer.  Her  theories  were  religious  only  because,  pushing 
Quimby's  suggestions  into  express  declarations,  she  found  his  "all 
is  mind"  completing  itself  in  "all  mind  is  God."  Her  religion,  in 
other  words,  existed  for  its  healing  value,  and  her  interest  in  it  was 
as  a  curative  agent.  Sickness  and  healing  were  the  foci  around 
which  the  ellipse  of  her  thought  was  thrown.  Christian  Scientists, 
therefore,  teach  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  sin;  and  sin,  like 
disease,  is  to  be  treated  by  denial.  C.  H.  Lea,  A  Plea  for  .  .  . 
Christian  Science,2  1915,  p.  29,  says  that  God,  being  perfect,  all 
His  creations  must  also  be  perfect;  "consequently  that  He  did  not 
and  could  not  create  a  sinful  man,  or  even  a  man  that  could  become 
sinful."  We  can  never  be  separated  from  God;  "the  apparent 
separation  of  man  from  God  is,  according  to  Christian  Science 
teaching,  due  to  the  false  human  consciousness  or  mortal's  sense 
of  sin"  (p.  39). 

52.  One  gains  the  impression  that  Mrs.  Eddy  was  even  excep- 
tionally troubled  by  sickness.    In  the  Christian  Science  Journal  for 


322  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI 

June,  1902  (McClure's  Magazine,  February,  1908,  p.  399),  a  con- 
tributor very  sensibly  writes:  "Do  not  Scientists  make  a  mistake 
in  conveying  the  impression,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  letting  an 
impression  go  uncorrected,  that  those  in  Science  are  never  sick, 
that  they  never  have  any  ailments  or  troubles  to  contend  with? 
There  is  no  Scientist  who  at  all  times  is  wholly  exempt  from  aches 
and  pains  or  from  trials  of  some  kind."  The  "Scientists, "  of  course, 
are  between  the  two  horns  of  a  dilemma,  for  how  can  they  "deny" 
sickness  without  "denying"  it !  A  physician  gives  this  account  of 
an  experience  of  his  own  with  this  stoicism  of  denial  (The  New  Church 
Review,  1908,  vol.  XV,  p.  419):  "I  was  called  to  a  Christian  Scien- 
tist who  was  supposed  to  be  sick.  I  found  her  hard  at  work  in  the 
kitchen,  for  she  was  a  boarding-house  keeper.  I  asked  her  where 
she  felt  sick,  and  she  said  'nowhere.'  I  asked  her  if  she  had  any 
pain,  and  she  replied,  'none,'  and  that  she  felt  as  well  as  usual. 
I  found  her  carrying  a  high  fever  and  both  lungs  becoming  solid 
with  pneumonia.  I  called  her  husband  aside  and  told  him  she  was 
probably  nearly  through,  but  that  she  ought  to  go  to  bed  and  be 
cared  for.  She  insisted  upon  remaining  up  and  making  some  bis- 
cuit for  supper,  and  did  so.  She  soon  lapsed  into  unconsciousness, 
and  passed  away.  Just  before  her  consciousness  left  her,  she  told 
me  she  did  have  pains  and  did  feel  sick,  but  was  taught  not  to  say 
so,  and  what  was  more,  to  persuade  herself  it  was  not  so,  and  that 
her  disease  was  only  an  illusion."  And  then  this  physician  adds: 
"I  speak  frankly,  as  the  need  is,  but  I  have  seen  those  of  this  belief 
with  heart  disease,  saying  they  were  well,  yet  suffering  week  after 
week,  till  death  released  them.  I  have  seen  them  with  malignant 
growths  becoming  steadily  worse,  but  as  I  inquired  about  them  I 
was  told  they  were  getting  better,  and  the  growth  was  disappearing; 
but  only  for  the  undertaker  to  inform  me  a  little  later  of  their 
loathsome  condition.  I  have  seen  children  .  .  .  hurried  down  to 
an  untimely  grave  with  appendicitis,  while  being  told  practically 
that  there  was  nothing  the  matter  with  them." 

53.  Observe  the  case  of  permitting  a  baby  to  die,  reprinted  in 
McClure's  Magazine,  October,  1907,  pp.  693  ff.,  from  the  Christian 
Science  Journal  of  March,  1889,  p.  637;  but  most  people  will  be 
satisfied  if  they  will  but  glance  over  the  sixty-eight  cases  of  Chris- 
tian Science  treatments  collected  by  Stephen  Paget  in  pp.  151-180 
of  his  The  Faith  and  Works  of  Christian  Science.  He  closes  with  a 
scathing  arraignment  based  on  what  he,  as  a  physician,  finds  in 
them  (p.  180):  "Of  course,  to  see  the  full  iniquity  of  these  cases, 
the  reader  should  be  a  doctor,  or  should  go  over  them  with  a  doc- 
tor.    But  everybody,  doctor  or  not,  can  feel  the  cruelty,  born  of 


MIND-CURE  323 

fear  of  pain,  in  some  of  these  Scientists — the  downright  madness 
threatening  not  a  few  of  them — and  the  appalling  self-will.  They 
bully  dying  women,  and  let  babies  die  in  pain;  let  cases  of  paralysis 
tumble  about  and  hurt  themselves;  rob  the  epileptic  of  their  bro- 
mide, the  syphilitic  of  their  iodide,  the  angina  cases  of  their  amyl- 
nitrate,  the  heart  cases  of  their  digitalis;  let  appendicitis  go  on  to 
septic  peritonitis,  gastric  ulcer  to  perforation  of  the  stomach,  ne- 
phritis to  uraemic  convulsions,  and  strangulated  hernia  to  the 
miserere  mei  of  gangrene;  watch  day  after  day,  while  a  man  or  a 
woman  slowly  bleeds  to  death;  compel  them  who  should  be  kept 
still  to  take  exercise;  and  withhold  from  all  cases  of  cancer  all  hope 
of  cure.  To  these  works  of  the  devil  they  bring  their  one  gift,  wilful 
and  complete  ignorance;  and  their  'nursing'  would  be  a  farce  if  it 
were  not  a  tragedy.  Such  is  the  way  of  Christian  Science,  face  to 
face,  as  she  loves  to  be,  with  bad  cases  of  organic  disease."  For 
the  legal  questions  involved,  see  William  A.  Purrington,  Christian 
Science,  an  Exposition  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  wonderful  Discovery,  including 
the  Legal  Aspects:  a  Plea  for  Children  and  other  helpless  Sick,  1900. 

54.  Ed.  1906,  p.  12.  N 

55.  Ed.  1899,  p.  34. 

56.  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  X,  1 908-1 909,  p.  435. 

57.  See  McClure's  Magazine,  May,  1907,  p.  103,  cited  above, 
note  41. 

58.  Ed.  1899,  p.  443. 

59.  Ibid. 

60.  Ed.  1899,  pp.  49-51. 

61.  P.  70. 

62.  Marcus  Aurelius  says:  "Do  not  suppose  you  are  hurt  and 
your  complaint  ceases.  Cease  your  complaint  and  you  are  not 
hurt." 

63.  Mesmerism  and  Christian  Science,  p.  282. 

64.  McClure's  Magazine,  June,  1908,  p.  184. 

65.  Ed.  1899,  p.  118. 

66.  Ed.  1881,  I,  p.  269. 

67.  Ed.  1899,  p.  411. 

68.  Ed.  1903,  p.  174. 

69.  McClure's  Magazine,  June,  1908,  p.  184;  cf.  Science  and 
Health,  ed.  1906,  pp.  382-383;  ed.  1899,  p.  381. 

70.  Miscellaneous  Writings,  p.  288. 

71.  P.  289. 

72.  Science  and  Health,  ed.  1891,  p.  529,  and  subsequent  editions 
up  to  and  including  1906. 

73.  Ed.  1881,  II,  p.  152:    "Until  the  spiritual  creation  is  dis- 


324  NOTES  TO  LECTURE   VI 

cerned  and  the  union  of  male  and  female  apprehended  in  its  soul 
sense,  this  rite  should  continue";  ed.  1899,  p.  274:  "Until  it  is 
learned  that  generation  rests  on  no  sexual  basis,  let  marriage  con- 
tinue." 

74.  On  this  whole  subject,  see  especially  Powell,  op.  cit.,  chap. 
Vin;  Podmore,  op.  cit.,  pp.  294  ff.;  Paget,  op.  cit.,  pp.  18  ff.  When 
it  is  declared  in  the  later  editions  of  Science  and  Health,  e.  g.,  1907, 
p.  68,  that  Mrs.  Eddy  does  not  believe  in  "agamogenesis,"  that 
must  be  understood  as  consistent  with  teaching  asexual  generation, 
or  else  taken  merely  for  "the  present  distress";  in  these  same  edi- 
tions she  teaches  asexual  generation  for  the  better  time  to  come. 
Cf.  the  commentators  already  mentioned. 

75.  The  materiality  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  golden  age  seems  to  be  made 
very  clear  from  the  teaching  that  not  sin  and  disease  merely  but 
death  itself  is  non-existent,  and  will  finally  cease  on  due  "demon- 
stration." When  Miss  Milmine  says  that  "a  sensationless  body" 
is,  according  to  Mrs.  Eddy,  the  ultimate  hope  of  Christian  Science 
(McClure's  Magazine,  June,  1908,  p.  184),  she  apparently  accurately 
expresses  the  fact.  It  seems  that  we  are  never  to  be  without  a 
body.  It  is,  though  illusion,  nevertheless  projected  with  inevita- 
ble certainty  by  "mortal  mind."  But  it  is  to  be  a  perfect  body  in 
the  end,  free  from  all  the  defects  with  which  it  is  unfortunately 
now  projected.  The  excitement  which  Mrs.  Eddy  manifested,  and 
her  manner  of  speech  at  Mr.  Eddy's  death,  show  her  point  of  view 
very  clearly.  "  My  husband,"  she  wrote  to  the  Boston  Post,  June  5, 
1882  (McClure's  Magazine,  September,  1907,  p.  570),  "never  spoke 
of  death  as  something  we  are  to  meet,  but  only  as  a  phase  of  mortal 
being." 

76.  As  quoted  by  Powell,  op.  cit.,  p.  127. 

77.  Op.  cit.,  p.  106. 

78.  Ed.  1899,  p.  387. 

79.  This  is  the  conventional  mode  of  speech  among  Christian 
Scientists,  and  may  be  read  afresh  any  day.  Thus  Margaret 
Wright,  answering  some  inquiries  in  the  New  York  Evening  Sun  of 
October  17,  1916,  quite  simply  writes:  "As  to  eating,  if  one  feels 
hungry  and  can  get  good  food,  the  sensible  thing  to  do  is  eat.  If 
they  did  not  do  so  Christian  Scientists  would  be  thought  sillier 
than  they  already  are.  Also,  if  one  can't  see  without  eyeglasses 
one  must  have  them  until  one's  understanding  of  truth  enables  one 
to  dispense  with  them.  That  is  practical,  and  Christian  Scientists 
are  a  practical  people,  or  should  be."     Cf.  note  85  on  p.  325. 

80.  See  particularly,  Richard  C.  Cabot,  M.D.,  "One  Hundred 
Christian  Science  Cures, "  in  McClure's  Magazine,  August,  1908,  pp. 


MIND-CURE  325 

472-476,  in  which  a  hundred  consecutive  "testimonies"  published 
in  the  Christian  Science  Journal  are  analyzed  from  the  physician's 
point  of  view;  and  Stephen  Paget,  The  Faith  and  Works  of  Christian 
Science,  1909,  pp.  99-129,  in  which  two  hundred  consecutive  "tes- 
timonies" are  brought  together;  also  A.  T.  and  F.  W.  H.  Myers, 
"Mind-Cure,  Faith-Cure  and  the  Miracles  of  Lourdes,"  in  the 
Proceedings  of  the  Society  of  Psychical  Research,  vol.  IX  (1893),  pp. 
160-176. 

81.  Luther  T.  Townsend,  Faith  Work,  Christian  Science  and 
Other  Cures,  p.  56. 

82.  Ed.  1899,  p.  400. 

83.  Powell,  op.  cit.,  p.  174. 

84.  Powell,  op.  cit.,  pp.  174-175,  and  notes  6  and  7,  p.  246;  Paget, 
op.  cit.,  pp.  70  and  231-232;  both  going  back  to  W.  H.  Muldoon, 
Christian  Science  Claims  Unscientific  and  Non-Christian,  1901,  pp. 
30-31,  who  cites  Mrs.  Eddy  herself,  in  Boston  Herald,  December, 
1900  (cf.  Literary  Digest,  December  29,  1900). 

85.  The  natural  embarrassment  of  Mrs.  Eddy  in  the  presence 
of  physical  need  is  equally  amusingly  illustrated  by  a  story  told  by 
Miss  Milmine  of  the  days  of  her  earlier  teaching  in  Boston  (1878). 
"Occasionally,"  she  says  {McClure's  Magazine,  August,  1907,  p. 
456),  "a  visitor  would  ask  Mrs.  Eddy  why  she  used  glasses  instead 
of  overcoming  the  defect  in  her  eyesight  by  mind.  The  question 
usually  annoyed  her,  and  on  one  occasion  she  replied  sharply  that 
she  'wore  glasses. because  of  the  sins  of  the  world,'  probably  mean- 
ing that  the  belief  in  failing  eyesight  (due  to  age)  had  become  so 
firmly  established  throughout  the  ages,  that  she  could  not  at  once 
overcome  it."  This,  too,  was  concession  to  "mortal  mind."  Com- 
pare note  79,  p.  324. 

86.  The  Treatment  of  Disease,  1909,  quoted  by  H.  G.  G.  Macken- 
sie,  in  Medicine  and  the  Church,  edited  by  Geoffrey  Rhodes,  1910, 
p.  122. 

87.  Charlotte  Lilias  Ramsay,  who  writes  the  article  "Christian 
Science,"  in  Hastings's  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics,  vol.  Ill, 
pp.  576-579,  in  lieu  of  adding  the  ordinary  "Literature"  to  the  arti- 
cle, informs  us  that  "there  is  no  authorized  Christian  Science  liter- 
ature except  that  which  issues  from  the  Christian  Science  Publishing 
House  in  Boston,  Mass."  "The  Student  of  Christian  Science," 
she  adds,  "must  be  warned  not  to  accept  any  other  as  genuine." 
Nevertheless,  she  gives  us,  here,  this  brief  sketch.  Lewis  Clinton 
Strang  gives  us  a  similar  one  in  The  New  Schqff-Herzog  Encyclopedia 
of  Religious  Knowledge,  vol.  X,  pp.  288-291,  which  would  appear  to 
be  even  more  authoritative,  as  bearing  at  its  head  this  "Note," 


326  NOTES   TO  LECTURE   VI 

signed  by  Mrs.  Eddy:  "I  have  examined  this  article,  edited  it, 
and  now  approve  it."  The  New  Schaff-Herzog  article  is  rendered 
more  valuable  by  the  adjunction  to  it  of  tv/o  others,  a  "Judicial 
Estimate  of  the  System,"  by  Lyman  P.  Powell,  and  a  "Critical 
View  of  the  Doctrines,"  by  J.  F.  Carson — the  whole  closing  with  an 
extensive  bibliography.  There  is  nevertheless  added  at  vol.  XII, 
p.  550,  as  a  "Statement  from  the  Christian  Science  Committee  on 
Publication  of  the  First  Church,  Boston,"  a  biographical  article  on 
Mrs.  Eddy,  signed  by  Eugene  R.  Cox.  Mrs.  Eddy's  Science  and 
Health,  with  Key  to  the  Scriptures,  is,  of  course,  the  source-book  for 
the  system  of  teaching.  First  issued  in  1875  (pp.  564)  it  has  gone 
through  innumerable  editions;  the  first  edition  of  the  text  revised 
by  J.  H.  Wiggin  was  published  in  1885;  but  the  book  has  undergone 
much  minor  revision  since.  According  to  the  trust-deed  by  which 
the  site  of  "the  Mother  Church"  in  Boston  is  held,  all  the  editions, 
since  at  least  the  seventy-first,  are  equally  authoritative.  We  have 
used  chiefly  the  one  hundred  and  sixty-first  (1899,  pp.  663).  Besides 
the  suggestions  given  by  C.  Lilias  Ramsay,  a  list  of  Mrs.  Eddy's 
writings  and  of  the  "Publications  of  the  Christian  Science  Publish- 
ing Society"  may  be  found  in  Appendix  H  to  C.  H.  Lea's  A  Plea  for 
the  Thorough  and  Unbiased  Investigation  of  Christian  Science,  and  a 
Challenge  to  its  Critics,  second  edition,  191 5.  A  good  classified 
bibliography  is  prefixed  to  Lyman  P.  Powell's  Christian  Science: 
the  Faith  and  its  Founder,  1907.  The  authorized  life  of  Mrs.  Eddy 
is  Sibyl  Wilbur's  Life  of  Mary  Baker  Eddy,  1908.  Georgine  Mil- 
mine's  Life  of  Mary  Baker  Eddy  and  History  of  Christian  Science, 
first  published  in  McClure's  Magazine  for  1907- 1908,  was  issued  in 
book  form  in  1909;  it  gives  the  ascertained  facts,  and  forms  the 
foundation  for  a  critical  study  of  the  movement.  The  books  which, 
along  with  it,  we  have  found,  on  the  whole,  most  useful,  are  Pow- 
ell's, Podmore's,  and  Paget's;  but  the  literature  is  very  extensive 
and  there  are  many  excellent  guides  to  the  study  of  the  system. 
Even  fiction  has  been  utilized.  Clara  Louise  Burnham's  The  Right 
Princess  (Boston,  Houghton  Mifflin  Co.,  1902),  for  example,  is 
a  very  attractive  plea  for  Christian  Science;  and  Edward  Eggle- 
ston's  The  Faith  Doctor  (a  story  of  New  York),  1891,  is  a  strong 
presentation  of  the  social  situation  created  by  it.  An  interesting 
episode  in  the  history  of  Christian  Science  may  be  studied  in  two 
books  published  through  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New  York,  by 
Augusta  E.  Stetson,  entitled  respectively:  Reminiscences,  Sermons, 
and  Correspondence  Proving  Adherence  to  the  Principles  of  Christian 
Science  as  Taught  by  Mary  Baker  Eddy,  and  Vital  Issues  in  Christian 
Science,  a  Record,  etc.     A  good  recent  discussion  of  the  inner  mean- 


MIND-CURE  327 

ing  of  Christian  Science  will  be  found  in  the  article  by  L.  W.  Snell, 
entitled  "Method  of  Christian  Science,"  in  The  Hibbert  Journal  for 
April,  191 5,  pp.  620-629.  Walter  S.  Harris,  Christian  Science  and 
the  Ordinary  Man,  191 7,  seeks  to  argue  afresh  the  fundamental 
question.  Among  the  most  recent  books,  see  also:  George  M. 
Searle  (a  Paulist  Father),  The  Truth  about  Christian  Science,  1916; 
and  W.  McA.  Goodwin  (a  "  Christian  Science  Practitioner,  Teacher, 
and  Lecturer"),  A  Lecture  entitled  The  Christian  Science  Church, 
1916. 


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